A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL

For many, music was a part of our youth and remains an inextricable part of our lives. Some never grow past the songs of their teens, the soundtrack of our delinquency, the score to the scores. Certain songs will always remind us of certain situations and the person/people we were with at the time.

I suppose the love and music connection has been the way of things for centuries. The Lone Ranger wasn't the first to ride to Rossini's William Tell Overture. Wigs flipped and bodices ripped over Mozart's Magic Flute, and many were handled by Handel. Beethoven's Fifth probably accompanied uncounted firsts.

Benny was a Goodman that wasn't hard to find on the boat-shaped home radios of the '30s and '40s. The sound was big bands along with the emerging upstart music genres of blues, jazz and country.

It may have been a horse and buggy and a ukulele, but transportation and mood music have long been potent weapons for the amorous. The cheap - maybe I should say affordable - marriage of romance and music for the masses came along with the internal combustion engine. It was the car radio that put people together with the time, place and mood altering tunes. Henry Ford didn't invent mass reproduction, but he did his part.

Hank Williams may have been so lonesome he could cry, but company became easier to come by. So was privacy. Many young couples fell into Johnny Cash's burning Ring of Fire. An Unchained Melody was so righteous, brother. Elvis sang Love Me Tender and helped make mockeries of millions of white weddings. We were All Shook Up.

Who could resist when Claudia Church asked just the right question at the right time, "Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow?"

Of course they would, the check was in the mail, and young men were Glad All Over along with the Dave Clark Five. The Beatles loved us, yeah, yeah, yeah - and everybody wanted to love somebody.

OK - it wasn't love, but it wasn't bad. Maybe it was a Third Rate Romance and a low rent rendezvous, but a good time was had by all. Stephen Stills articulated what most of us couldn't: If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. We did. Doors were opened, our fires were lit, and we rode a Led Zeppelin into a Whole Lotta Love.

Decades have passed, but some women reading this still remember which songs were playing each of the 15 times they lost their virginity. They can turn to their mates and wistfully say, "Honey, they're playing our song" and know every word and how it made them feel.

I have to assume that a number of modern-day kids lose and find it while hip-hop-rap blasts. I'll bet they sing along when their special song is played, too. It's fun to recapture romantic moments. Sing along:

"Well, you !#$@, you nasty #$@, get down here and $#%* my ( %@%* you $#, you %#&$, you worthless %*%#$@#&*&' hoochie, do it before I pop a cap in your @## along with the next &%@#$ cop that %$#s with me!"

It has to bring tears to their eyes. It would if they knew any better.