I fell in love with Steve when he serenaded me with his steel guitar. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor of his studio apartment. He tuned the strings on his Yamaha and began to pick the famous acoustic intro to “Stairway to Heaven,” one of rock’s most revered songs, nearly eight minutes long.
I was impressed — until he began to sing. Steve had many admirable traits, but crooning wasn’t one of them. He even admitted to being tone-deaf. He made Dylan sound like a trained opera singer.
Yet he played Led Zeppelin’s iconic masterpiece as if on stage. His guitar teacher taught it to him in high school after Steve asked to play something contemporary rather than classical. It wasn’t exactly the love song I’d expected, but it wooed me. I chose to believe that he’d never played that song for anyone but me.
At our wedding, I selected “Here, There, and Everywhere,” a favorite and more typical Beatles’ romantic song to accompany us down the aisle. On my husband’s wedding ring, I engraved “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” a love song by Stevie Wonder.
Early in our marriage, Steve turned me on to his favorite musicians, including Jackson Browne and Neil Young. Then, one day, our joint tastes started to change. I grew tired of classic rock, preferring the gentler lilts of female singer-songwriters.
Once, as carpoolers for three middle-school soccer players, Steve put on Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” which is over 11 minutes long. The girls were asleep in the back seat, but suddenly, our daughter woke up to a nightmare: endless Dylan, whom she claimed had the worst voice ever. To this day, she still jokes about how desolate that car ride was.
When she was a teenager, I didn’t want to turn into my parents, who often complained, “Turn down that awful music.” I was thrilled when our daughter gravitated toward my taste for Broadway show soundtracks. Together we harmonized from Rent and Hamilton.