Here's my life in music as defined by what I had decided was "the greatest song ever" at the different ages in my life.

1. When I was 6, it was "Ride My See Saw" by the Moody Blues. All my siblings were much older than I was; there was a great deal of hippie influence in their dress, friends, and music; and I remember them putting this record album on the turn table on our little study. Perhaps because the song used an image a six year old could comprehend -- a see saw -- I decided this was the best song ever.



2. When I was 11, it was Kodachrome by Paul Simon. I've told before how I listened to and loved this song while on a long car ride wiht my dad in 1973. He surprised me a few months later by giving me the record album for my birthday. Three confessions: 1) I originally thought the name of the song was "Portachrome"; and 2) it wasn't until much later (like my 20s) that I learned kodachrome as a kind of film; 3) I still love the song.



3. When I was 18, it was, of course, "Stairway To Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. I'd gone through the album rock phase and I thought this was the seminal moment of that genre. I believed that every great song had to be at least six minutes long, have a variety of musical tempos and styles, and feature lyrics that sounded both profound and obscure at the same time. By those standards, "Stairway" scored a perfect trifecta.



2. When I was 30, it was "The Boys Of Summer" by Don Henley. I was a big fan of the Eagles when I was a teenager -- "Take It To The Limit" could have easily made this list -- but a bigger fan of Henley's solo work. This song is the major reason why. Remember the list of what makes a great classic song from #3 above? This song packs so much energy into just a few minutes that it blows that theory out of the water. Makes "Stairway" seem so tedious in comparison . . . or maybe it's just because when I got older I had less time to listen to the music. For fun, enjoy this acoustic version:



1. When I am 50, it's "Where The Streets Have No Name" by U2. The haunting keyboards, the ringing guitar riff, the soaring vocals, and the lyrics that capture our longing for a slice of heaven on earth make this one sound as good today as it did when I first heard it.



How about the version from the 2002 Super Bowl? Comes on after after "Beautiful Day" and combines the music with a tribute to the victims of 9.11:

Bruce Springsteen's "We Take Care Of Our Own" has all the hallmarks of an American rock anthem: pulsing beat, churning guitar riff (with just a hint of keyboards behind it), and feel-good chorus:

We take care of our own
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own.

Upon first hearing, you think the song is Springsteen at his patriotic best, paying homage to the way Americans support those in their midst who have fallen on hard times.

Think again.

When you give the lyrics a close study, you see he's saying the exact opposite.

Look here:

From Chicago to New Orleans
From the muscle to the bone
From the shotgun shack to the Superdome
We yelled "help" but the cavalry stayed home
There ain't no-one hearing the bugle blown
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own

The "own" we take care of, according to Springsteen, is not America en masse; it is instead people just like us. Rather than celebrating American altruism, the singer laments this country's class-conscious protectionism.

For the people in charge of politics and resources, "our own" doesn't include those who ended up at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. That's why the calvary "stayed home."

Think what you want about Springsteen's understanding of what actually happened in New Orleans in 2005 -- and I have serious misgivings about his diagnosis -- but recognize what he is doing in this work of art: using the form of an upbeat rock anthem to camouflage the anger of social critique.

It's daring. It's risky. And whenever singing along with the song makes you feel proud to be an American, Lee Greenwood-sytle, it is devastatingly effective in its irony.

Here's the song itself:



This isn't Springsteen's first foray into a musical form and lyrical chorus that actually run counter to his song's intent. Remember "Born In The USA"? Remember the chorus that made you want to put the flag up in front of your house? Remember Ronald Reagan using it at campaign appearances in 1984, lauding Springsteen's patriotism?

The President probably wouldn't have done so had he heard the bitterness in the narrator's reflections about the war and its aftermath:

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said son if it was up to me
Went down to see my v.a. man
He said son, don't you understand

I had a brother at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone

Here's that one:



I believe his assessment of the Vietnam legacy has much more to offer us than his views on the Katrina rescue.

Yet his ability to capture the power of irony in modern rock and roll is beyond debate.

Last week I posted about five moments in sports that brought me to tears.

This week . . . the movies.

I cry at odd movies, at scenes most other people don't find so traumatic. But anything having to do with fathers and sons or divorce or unexpected death . . . well, pass the kleenex, please.

5. Walk The Line. In this biopic of Johnny Cash there is a scene in which despite the level Johnny's accomplishments and fame, his father responds with contempt and not approval. The ache in Joaquin Phoenix's face turned on my tears, in large part because I never had to go through anything like that from my dad.



4. Lion King. Who with a heart didn't cry when Mufasa died and Simba gets told to "run away and never come back"?



3. The Iron Lady. Hardly a tear jerker. Except when you see the influence of Margaret Thatcher's father on her later life and then see the ravages of Alzheimer's on her later, later life.



2. Field Of Dreams. I confess: when I first saw this movie in 1989, I thought it majored in baseball and minored in eternal life. Then I became a father -- twice -- and saw it again in 2006. All of sudden, I realized it was about fatherhood. The closing scene is hard to beat.



1. Hope Floats. My parents were married 69 years. Julie and I are approaching our 28th anniversary. So divorce has never hit me intimately or personally. But I still can't make it through this scene, complete with dad's infinite capacity for self-justification and daughter's infinite capacity for pain.

Last week in the wake of Julie's post-Super Bowl euphoria, I posted about the top five times sports have made me genuinely happy.

Today, it's the opposite side of that coin.

What are those times when sports results have made me genuinely sad? When instead of tears of joy I shed tears of sadness because my player/team/school lost?

Now: I am not including reaction to competitions in which I took part. Many of my losses in tennis were followed by tears or despair or both, starting with the first tournament match I ever played as an eight year old and ending with my senior year in college when we lost a nightmarish match to a hated rival, ensuring they won the conference championship and we didn't.

So my five saddest sports moments as a spectator:

5. Texas defeats SMU, 38-7 in 1968. I was six. The SMU team featuring Chuck Hixson and Jerry LeVias was riding high. Our family made the trip from Dallas down to Austin for what I was sure would be an upset. What happened instead was a debacle. Texas was too good, too deep, and had just unveiled something called a "wishbone" offense ... an offense that propelled them to 30 straight wins over the next two years. We were surrounded by "obnoxious" Longhorn fans -- as if we would have been tolerable if the results were going our way -- and I cried the whole second half. No YouTube exists of that game (thank you, Lord), but here are some Longhorn highlights from that era:



4. NC State defeats Houston 54-52 to win 1983 NCAA Basketball Championship. Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma seemed to have it all: Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and mountains of style. They were also on track to be the first team from Texas ever to win an NCAA basketball title. I had no Carolina connections at the time, so no reason to root for Jim Valvano's Wolfpack. When the Lorenzo Charles' dunk went in, and many of my current friends celebrated, my heart went out.



3. San Francisco 49ers 20, Cincinnati Bengals 16, 1989 Super Bowl. We were living in central Kentucky at the time and I adopted the Bengals for a season. They responded to my endorsement with their best season ever behind Boomer Esiason's passing and Ickey Woods' shuffling. And they were within 70 seconds of winning it all until Joe Montana got the ball with a few minutes left and you knew the end before it happened.



2. Rafael Nadal defeats Roger Federer, 2008 Wimbledon. I'm always for Federer against Nadal -- he's got a one handed backhand, he enjoys net play, and he turns sport into art when he's on his game. In 08, he was going for his sixth Wimbledon in a row, and because of rain delays and turns of momentum, it seemed as though the match would never end. It did, sadly, in the London gloaming, with Federer missing a routine forehand and Nadal collapsing in some well-deserved glee.



1. Ice Bowl -- Green Bay 21, Dallas 17, 1967 NFL Championship. Something about being six magnifies wins and losses, doesn't it? I remember watching the game in the warmth of Dallas, passing the football in the front yard with my brother at halftime, and then disbelief and tears at Bart Starr's quarterback sneak that beat the Cowboys yet again.

So Sunday night was a pretty happy night in our house.

Not necessarily for me, mind you, but for Julie who is a lifelong New York Giants fan. This went along with the 1987, 1991, and 2008 Super Bowls in making for a happy wife.

Which gets me thinking . . . what have the times been for me that sports results have made me genuinely (if briefly) happy? Where my great desire for a certain player or team to win a decisive match or game actually happened? Where "they" became "we" in a moment of celebration?

Here goes . . .

5. SMU defeats Texas, 1982. Growing up, I hated Texas. And they always beat SMU, the school where my father taught with the team I idolized. Then I went away to college in New Jersey myself and SMU turned the tables. The 1982 Mustangs were the best ever, finishing with a Cotton Bowl win, an 11-0-1 record, and a #2 National Ranking (though no other team went undefeated that year). Yet nothing compares to beating Texas in the regular season. I remember watching the game in a common room in college, having to explain to others my irrational love for this under-rated team. Eric Dickerson's run following a pitch from Lance McIlhenny (my high school classmate) says it all as SMU wins 30-17:



4. Duke's first national championship, 1991. As you'll see in a bit, I love it when long-time runners-up get finally break through and win it all. Duke had been to five consecutive Final Fours without a title before 1991. To win the title, they upset an undefeated UNLV in the semis before beating Kansas in the final. Gotta love Grant Hill's dunk as well as Coach K's three subsequent national championships:



3. Dallas Cowboys win Super Bowl VI over Miami Dolphins 24-3 in 1972. For years, the Cowboys had been ridiculed as "next year's champions." Finally, behind Roger Staubach, Duane Thomas, and Bob Lilly, next year became this year, the city of Dallas breathed a collective sigh of relief, and I as a 10 year old finally cried tears of joy at a football game rather than tears of sadness.



2. Carolina Panthers playoff run, 2004. If you lived in Charlotte at the time, you had to pinch yourself when you said, "The Panthers are going to the Super Bowl." But they were. And they did. The two signature moments from those playoffs include Steve Smith's touchdown catch-and-run that beat the Rams . . .



and DeShaun Foster's frankly incomprehensible touchdown run against the Eagles in the NFC Championship game, won by the Panthers 14-3:



Glad I watched both those games in the privacy of my own home because my exuberance was just a wee bit out of control.

1. Ivan Lendl wins US Open 1985. Like I said, I love it when a long time runner up makes it to the top. That's what Lendl -- perennial #2 in the world -- did to John McEnroe in Flushing Meadow. I admired Lendl's tenacity, tried unsuccessfully to mimic his forehand, and even wore his argyle tennis shirts. So I jumped about as high as he did when he won match point and clinched the #1 ranking in the world.