First, a caveat: D. introduced me to a lot of music that I still can listen to, in particular “Epiphany” from Sweeney Todd. “You’re a Sondheim fan and you don’t know Sweeney Todd?!” she cried, astounded. “We’re watching it right now.” She dragged me into the den of her family’s basement apartment on the Upper West Side and stuck a DVD in the computer. I was hooked. There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit / and it’s filled with people who are full of shit / and the vermin of the world inhabit it - but not for long! Then a crazed George Hearn vows vengeance. They all deserve to die! And there’s “Galileo” by the Indigo Girls, Andrew Lippa’s entire score for The Wild Party, various performances by Jimi Hendrix, and several Michael Jackson tunes that I had never heard because my parents refused to get cable when I was growing up and they didn’t listen to commercial radio.

But at some point - probably back when we were New York, back before I left for Iowa and grad school and she followed me there - the relationship was three months young. It was a bright sunny March day and we were walking near Riverside Park. “You know what?” I said. “We don’t have a song. We should have a song.” We tossed ideas back and forth over the next few days, but eventually came to the only logical conclusion two Tom Lehrer fans could find: “The Masochism Tango.” I ache for the touch of your lips, dear / but much more for the touch of your whips, dear / You can raise welts / like nobody else / As we dance to the Masochism tango. It was funny. It would have been funnier if we hadn’t engaged in a masochism tango of our own eleven months later, trying desperately to prop up a relationship that failed for a variety of reasons (D. and Iowa didn’t get along very well, D. and another guy got along too well, I have my own shortcomings, and so on). In retrospect, I think one reason why we kept trying to make things work was the fact that neither one of us had ever had a normal relationship that had lasted this long, and we couldn’t believe we’d have to give it up.

But we did. As our relationship entered its death throes, there was the occasional tender moment, one of which resulted in a second, more permanent song ruining, in part because I’m exceedingly embarrassed that the song got any emotional reaction out of me at all. That would be “For Good,” from Wicked. Yes, Wicked. Yes, the uber-schmaltzy song at the end of the musical that’s extremely popular with fourteen-year-old-girls. And it nearly made me cry. Because the lyrics, syrupy as they are - who can say that I’ve been changed for the better? I have been changed for good - really did apply in our case. It came up on iTunes while I was helping D. get ready to leave. And we just stood there while the song played, hugging each other.

Like I said, embarrassing. But I haven’t been able to hear the song since.