Dave’s 50th birthday is Monday.  This is the 4th in a week-long series of love-tributes to my Dave.  The previous posts are 50 Things I Love about Dave, 50 Words that Describe Dave, and 50 Reasons Dave was born.   

We thought every song was about us and our love for the first, oh, 26 or 27 years (we’ll celebrate 28 years of marriage this summer)…Below are a few of the early ones that ignite some memories.

1. Endless Love  Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie 1981.  This was a huge hit the summer of our getting together and my sister, Tami, wanted us to sing it to each other at our wedding.  We didn’t, but there is some early-marriage video of us lip-syncing to it very late one night.
2. Eddie Rabbit Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places (meaning before we got together :) )
3. “Some people are made for each other.  Some people can love one another for life, how ’bout us?”  How ‘Bout Us? by Champagne 1981
4. Cliff and Olivia   Suddenly…the wheels are in motion, and I am ready to sail any ocean…
5. Reminds me of youth group trips: Careless Whisper by George Michael 1984
6. Up Where We Belong 1984 “The road is long, and there are mountains in our way…”  Jennifer Warren and Joe Cocker from the great movie, An Officer and a Gentleman.  Dave and I actually sang a “Christian” rendition of it which was quite well-liked.  Hokey, yes, but Bebe and Cece did it first.
7. 1984 Tina Turner What’s Love Got to Do with it?  Got to do with it?!
8. Whitney Houston 1985 “No other man’s gonna do ~ so I’m saving all my love for you…” Saving All My Love whew!
9. 1984  I Just Called to Say I love You, Stevie Wonder, naturally
10. We lived near the fairgrounds and our first night at home as newly marrieds, we listened to Air Supply singing at the fair, but through our windows  So Lost in Love  1981
11. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley
12. Dave and I have sang this song at many many weddings, Always by Atlantic Starr “Boy, I love you so, can’t find enough ways to let you know.  But you can be sure I’m yours for always…We both know that our love will grow…”
13. Patti Labelle and James Ingram “Baby, come to me.  Let me put my arms around you this was meant to be…”  Baby, Come to Me
14. Little Jeanie  Elton
15. “Once in your life you find her..”  Arthur’s Theme: The Best that You can Do, Christopher Cross
16. I Love a Rainy Night  Another Eddie Rabbit from 1981
17. “My friends wonder why I call you all the time, what can I say?…Because your kiss is on my list of the best things in life…”  Kiss on My List  Darryl Hall and John Oates 
18. My baby takes the Morning Train, 9-5  Sheena Easton
19. Olivia Newton-John 1981 Physical  I wanna get physical, physical…let me hear your body talk…
20. Rapture 1981 by Blondie, the first “rap” song I had ever heard.  And she was blond and white.
21. “Please remember my life is in your hands”  Woman by John Lennon
22. The Boy from New York City
23. 1981 Slow Hand  The Pointer Sisters
24. Ronnie Milsap  Smoky Mountain Rain “keeps on fallin’…”
25. IOU Lee Greenwood, the song of our first anniversary in 1982.  We danced to it.
26. Survivor Eye of the Tiger  We actually used to work out to this song.
27. Another Ronnie Milsap: I Wouldn’t Have Missed It
28. Michael Jackson just hitting his stride Billie Jean 1983  Didyou see the Motown 25th Anniversary Special?  It was historic!
29. Islands in the Stream Dolly & Kenny  channeling the sounds of the Bee Gees
30. Sweet Dreams are Made of This  Eurythmics
31. Making Love ot of Nothing at All Air Supply
32. The Girl is Mine “the doggone girl is mine…” Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson
33. Laying out in the backyard getting a good tan just after Tre was born in 1983 listening to Taco Puttin on the Ritz
34. “Just you and I sharing our love together.  And I know in time we’ll build the dreams we treasure.  We’ll be alright…”  Just You and I  Crystal Gayle and Eddie Rabbit
35. Take a Look at Me Now (Against All Odds)   Phil Collins 1984
36. Kenny Loggins Footloose
37. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go  Wham
38. “I’m addicted to you, baby.  You’re a hard habit to break.”  Hard Habit to Break
39. Everytime You Go Away “you take a piece of my with you…”
40. You’re the Inspiration you still are, honey!
41. Amy Grant and Peter Cetera (he had just left Chicago and she was stepping out ino secular music The Next Time I Fall in Love  I’ll know better what to do…
42. Sorry, but yes, Barry Manilow   Wouldn’t it be nice being Lonely Together (we listened to this on our first date!  haha!)
43. It’s Sad to Belong to Some One Else when the right one comes along
44. Dave sang to me at our wedding, a Carpenter’s hit I Won’t Last a Day without You
45. That’s the Way, a contemporary Christian wedding song was another one he sang to me in our ceremony
46. So romantic Wonderful Tonight.
47. But old songs are ours, too God Only Knows The Beach Boys
48. I’ll be Seeing You, we love the old love songs of the WWII era
49. Once on a walk in Dallas (around our 2nd anniversary, I sang the entire Gladys Knight rendition of Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me to Dave, because he is.
50. I had to delete a bunch of “our songs”.  Too many.  But last night on American Idol, I heard yet another song about Dave and me by Brad Paisley, Then.  It is a song of memory,  looking back to the first kiss and having babies days.  It recalls all the love of those days, but then goes on:

Now you’re my whole life
Now you’re my whole world
I just can’t believe the way I feel about you
Like a river meets the sea
Stronger than its ever been
We’ve come so far since that day
And I thought I loved you then

I can just see you
When you’re hair is turning gray
What I can’t see
is how I’m gonna love you more
But I’ve said that before

Now you’re my whole life
Now you’re my whole world
We’ll look back someday at this moment that we’re in
And I’ll look at you and say
And I thought I loved you then
And I thought I loved you then…

Keep singing to me, babe and I’ll keep singing to you!…Jeanie

Happy 50th Birthday, Dave!