Love Story, by Taylor Swift

I'd venture a guess that anyone who hears this song - football players included - can't help but want a Romeo to come resuce them from hum-drum life. I hear Taylor belt out that little number and my skin melts into my clothes and suddenly freezes when I realize I'm not wearing a wedding dress. The good life. A girl can dream.

Many years ago my middle-school history teacher told me that she figures if you can drive down the road blasting a country song, you gotta be in a pretty good place. I would agree - you put on a little Rascal Flatts or Sugarland and I'm up on my couch with a hairbrush pretending I'm the next American Idol. But then what about that joke: What happens when you sing a country song backwards? You get your car back, your money back, your relationship back...

When I was a kid and my mom was going through a hard time, my brother and I used to fight over who had to ride in the car with her up to Vermont. This had nothing to do with our mother, but she played this one god-awful song by Mary Chapin Carpenter on repeat. I'll never forget when she decided THIS song perfectly encapsulated how she felt. We were watching television and she comes into the room and goes to my Dad, "Michael, you have to listen to this song. It's just... it's perfect." So, Michael Jr. and I saunter into the living room behind them and Mom pushes play. The lyrics: "You can have it, I don't want it, when you got it, I'll be gone. It don't matter what you're saying, because the damage has all been done..." You get the drift. No, not because you're familiar with the song, but that's because the lyrics don't actually stray from these lines. It's a three minute jingle. After that evening, the "you can have it" song became the family anthem.

So during the carride to Vermont, Mom would try to attempt subtlty in playing it over and over. An unsuspecting Mary Chapin Carpenter song would ambush the stereo: "Oh I love this song! 'Shut Up and Kiss Me!' It's so fun," she'd say, pretending that she didn't realize that the song after 'Shut Up and Kiss Me' (which, might I add has some controversial messages for an eleven-year-old girl) was the "you can have it" one. Then that song came on and all bets were off. The volume would turn up and Mom would get a distant look in her eye, and I knew I wasn't supposed to talk for a few minutes while she listened. Afterwards the whole reel would start again. "Oh, I love this song! 'Shut Up and Kiss Me!'" and so it went. You can imagine why Michael and I held bets for who got to ride up with Dad. Although in retrospect, he was listening to a lot of Camelot and Phantom of the Opera back then, so who got the better deal might be debatable.

I deliberately never learned that song's actual name, perhaps because I felt that by knowing it I'd never escape from that very first time we sat down as a family and listened. When you declare a song as your own, regardless of its cultural status, in many ways you are irrevocably attached to that first time hearing it. The lyrics encapsulate some sort of meaning, be it euphoria-inducing or that dark place you hide in when the days stretch on for too long. Whenever I break up with someone I immediately stress out about all of that music I'm losing. I'll start listening to the major songs I shared with my ex in an avid attempt to uninstall the memories connected to them. Once I even made a playlist and called it "Muscle Memories" with all of the songs I could think of that at one time applied to an old relationship. That didn't do very much, other than make my Ipod house a siv for where I could listen and feel sorry for my reluctantly-single self.

There was one in particular, perhaps the most depressing song ever written called "About Today" by The National, that I listened to repeatedly. It's about someone's inability to speak up, and once they do, it's too late. That was totally me, I figured. I'd kept my true feelings inside and neglected to come up with the sort of direct communication mandatory in functional relationships. This was exactly what I needed to listen to in order to move forward. This guy was sad, I was sad, today was ending and we were both alone. So, I listened. And you know what? Didn't get less sad. In fact, as time endeared and I was still depressed, I'd listen to it in order to justify the feeling. "It's a depressing song, of course I feel sad now," I'd tell friends, completely unconvincingly. Music not only comforts, it justifies.

Thankfully, I eventually got my wits about me and banished "About Today" from any and all playlists, and my mother hasn't listened to that unnamed song in years. My father still listens to showtunes, but I suspect that just as I listen to Taylor Swift and dream about Romeo saving me, so does Dad, dreaming about being King of Camelot.