We Belong Together

I'm sitting around clicking my clicker up and down the hi def channels. It's one of my bad habits.

But tonight, a couple of programs filled with romantic music are drawing me. One is the movie La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips as fifties rock and roll phenom Ritchie Valens. Even though rock and roll was his basic style, Valens is also noted for a couple of romantic ballads.

One is Donna, a song he wrote for his high school sweetheart whose real name was Donna. The second is one of my all time favorites, We Belong Together. I still remember a couple of lines:

You're mine and we belong together
Yes, we belong together for eternity.

Tonight as I listened to it once again, I could feel the goose bumps rising. This has got to be one of the really all-time romantic ballads. I first heart the song in 1986 when the movie La Bamba was released. My wife and I saw it in a Kahala Shopping Center movie theater in Honolulu. We both loved it, and when I hear it, I think of her. If you've never heard the song, get it and listen. I think you'll like it.

The other program is a PBS Special about Italian-American singers and their music. Most of the songs are from the fifties, and oddly, most of the Italian Singers have Anglicized names. It seems that back in those days, the custom for anyone without a good old Americanized name was to adopt one for business purposes.

You may or may not know the following names, but all of them belong to Italian-Americans: Bobby Darin, Frankie Laine, Bobby Rydell, Connie Francis, Tony Bennett, Jerry Vale, Dean Martin, the list goes on.

Not all of the singers succumbed to Americanization, at least as far as names go. Some of the more popular singers retained their birth names in whole or in part. These included Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Vic Damone, Juliis La Rosa, and a host of others.

But one thing is clear. Whether the Italian-American entertainers changed their names or not, they were universally top flight singers who produced some of the most romantic music ever. We'll never roll back the nusical clock. Music evolves, and each generation has its own version of romance and romantic music.

Still, you just can't beat the sentiments in We Belong Together. Let your mind and memories drift away for a moment and imagine you're in another era.

You're mine and we belong together
Yes, we belong together for eternity

You're mine, your lips belong to me
Yes, they belong to only me for eternity

I'm willing to bet you have a special person in your past or present who is that one special love you want to spend an eternity with. Am I right?