Why is it that music has so much influence on so many? I have been collecting recordings since my uncle bought me my first tape (John Waite's 'No Brakes') in 1983/4 and still cannot stop. I can't even quite feel satisfied with a downloaded mp3 or burnt CD, I like having the original copy. I have LPs taken from my parents or bought on a whim for $1 just to see what was on it (first one, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' for $1 and hey, I have an unwrapped copy of INXS' 'Kick' that I got for $2). I have 45s still (my first was Terrence Trent D'Arby's 'Wishing Well') and a boatload of CDs (first one(s), Led Zeppelin's '90 Box Set).
I have so much crap. And I'd like to throw out my copies of things such as Byran Adams' 'Into the Fire' and Chris Sheppard's 'Pirate Radio Sessions Vol. 2', but I just can't cut the cord. I used to force myself to go through my entire collection of all recordings every year just to ensure I got "value" out of the materials. Now I'm too lazy to do that.
I still try to make mix tapes now and then - they are more for my wife's car use seeing as that's the only place a tape gets played anymore. We used to DJ in high school (see one of the previous posts), but I never owned proper mixing equipment myself, and while I still gaze at the cross-fadin' play centres at the music store, I can't justify spending $300+ for more glittery gear to fill the house with. Perhaps when we get a more powerful computer at home I will try to mess around again.
My mom gave me my first tape player - it was one that her school didn't need anymore, it had a single speaker and the cassette popped out of the top. I think I saw it in every French class I ever had. My first record player was bought in a garage sale for $5. It had its own (single MONO) speaker and I tried scratching with it, but it took such effort as my weak arms could barely overcome the determined belt drive locked away inside. Actually, when I first heard about rap, I thought that scratching a record meant literally scratching it. I took a Celine Dion 45 (given to me as a free demo after watching the movie it came from as part of YMCA camp - she was a nobody and I thought she was terrible... still do.) and scratched it with a knife and then played it on the record player. While it didn't sound like Grandmaster Flash, it did make Mlle. Dion sound better. Until I put it on 45 rpm speed - then it sounded like her again.  [If any friends reading this have a record player they don't use, please let me know, mine has since crapped out - 'Saturday Night Fever' needs to rear its ugly head again]
I went through a period of time when I couldn't stand any Christian recording artists (I can't stand syrupy pop songs of any ilk). Then I went through a period where I tried to buy one CD of a Christian artist for every secular one. Then it was back to not liking many of them. I'm still in that stage, I just pretty much stick to the (very) few Christian artists I still like and focus on learning and purchasing worship CDs as part of helping lead out church's English music ministry.
Back to the initial quesiton posed.... So many songs on the radio (mainly dealing with love and the chase/loss of it) touch us and speak to us. Even more so, the songs that can touch us on a spiritual level, if we let them. Is it because we are such emotional beings? Because the vast majority are not creative enough to express feelings and so when someone else can, we hold that recording close as if it was done especially for us? Why is it that the women get misty eyed and the men a little jealous  when a groom sings to his bride at a wedding ceremony? ("awwwww" vs. "jerk... I should have had the guts to do that") I think its just that we hold so much inside from the world that music, verse, prose, design, pictures, paintings etc. help get the raw stuff out. We haven't figured out how to make our lives a statement, thus we need other means to state our selves.
[Side note - it amazes me how much better it feels to sing praise to my Creator, my God than it does to my lover, my wife, or worse, to myself, yet do I reflect this in my energy spent? (But I will still sing to you, my love, no worries!)]
All of this has come up in my mind as I heard a song last week that reminded me of when my dad's dad passed away in '89. It seems that for many of the major passings of family members I have a song to hold onto that was playing around me at that time.
Grandpa C : Mike + the Mechanics, 'Living Years'
Nona : Boyz II Men/Mariah Carey, 'One Sweet Day'
Mom : Boyz II Men, 'Mama', 'I Lift My Eyes Up (Psalm 21)', 'My Jesus, I Love Thee'
I know that when Dad finally moves on one day [how morbid], it will be Harry Chapin's 'Cats in the Cradle' as that song epitomizes our relationship as I was growing up. | 
