Aw, thanks, Deb. I swear I could do a whole "Prom" (or, even better, dances more generally) series. That music is so vivid in my head.

Heh. I should be working on my Long Black Veil story, and starting "Cruel Sister", and this drabble topic is so totally cooking me, I may have to stay with it until it burns itself out.

I liked that one, Jesse. I spent that whole day at the union hall feeling the Springsteen vibe. Kept waiting for the "Big Man" to show up.

I know I shouldn't do this. He's a friend, and we want it to stay that way, although we're too scared to talk about it.

I just...I can't let this song go without dancing. It's not something I can do alone. I need, for a second, to close my eyes, pretend I'm being held by someone else.

Anyone else, really, anyone who wants to be holding me more than they want to hold anyone else, someone who's going to be hard to let go. And it will be our song.

This music makes it hurt too much to be alone.

135 words for the Music challenge.

It’s four hours from Queens to Boston, and we make the trip twice every year, Connecticut growing larger each time.

Dad finds an AM station playing songs from his childhood, and begins singing along. When we lose the station he keeps going:

“Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care . . .”

“I gave my love a cherry without a stone . . .”

“There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea . . .”

Song after song, dredged from his memory and imprinted on four school-aged children in the darkness. Year after year, as the old wagon ages along with the relatives in Queens.

When I’m twelve, we buy a new van, shiny and red. We stop going to New York for holidays.

The new car is a poor replacement for Radio Dad.

This topic kills me.

Music drabble, 100 words:

My fingertips are raw and reddened, creased by the strings. My eyes are watering from the strain of staring at the sheet music for the last two hours, running the passage again and again and again. I can't blow this audition. It's the last concert before I graduate, a reduced orchestra. If I blow it, I'm stuck in some back room playing quartet music with the rest of the rejects. If I blow it, I’m going to let him down.

Again. Again. Faster.

He is sitting alone when I enter the room, and I know I’m about to disappoint him.

erika, that's perfect! I'm always wonderng what the soundtrack of my life would sound like. But it's more a memory thing -- for instance, ninth grade would be Born to Run, no question. But your idea is better.

ita, that one's really powerful.

I love "Radio Dad," Consuela.

Kristin, you really nailed that feeling -- "Again. Again. Faster."

This topic is incredibly rich.

One of my best kept secrets is that I don’t get music. I just don’t. My brain has this huge disconnect between what it hears and remembers and how my body viscerally reacts. I can never seem to remember who sings what. A song never gives me the impetus to dance. Music has never made me cry.

It makes me wonder about myself. What gene is missing in me that lets other people feel music? What do other people hear and feel that I don’t? Am I missing out on something incredible? Will I ever understand exactly what I’m missing out on?

Four years ago, I found out. To say I was heartbroken makes a cliché out of the deep, painful emptiness I had become. I put on Wynonna and heard, for the first time after listening to it many times, “Is It Over Yet.” Music ripped out my already chewed up heart and began to heal it.

She hasn't had a structured thought go through her head for almost an hour. She can only string thoughts together now because she's gasping for air in the overchilled and sterile ladies' room. Breathing was easier out there, driven by the rhythm, shimmering and pounding and grinding against him.

"So what do you think?" Lisa asks.

"Think?" She looks distractedly at the door.

"You gonna go home with him, or what?"

"Go home?"

"C'mon - you want him. It's obvious."

She shakes her head. Sweat flies off her, and splashes into the sink.

"Fuck home. I'm never leaving that dance floor."