A Soundtrack to our loves

Before Lionel Richie said "Hello," before Sade sang "Sweetest Taboo," and before Common saw "The Light," there was Emily Dickinson. \nLovers used to call on poets to express their true feelings. Now they call on pop.\nUsing their own collection and a CD burner, smitten romantics can take their most intimate songs and turn them into one perfect Valentine's Day mix CD. The mixes are cheap, easy and very personal.\nWith file-sharing programs like Kazaa, finding that perfect song to sum up your feelings is even easier. \n"(Mix CDs) can be a great way to show someone how you feel about them," Residence Hall Association President Ilia Smith said. \nIU rock and roll professor Glenn Gass, who created a mix CD to play during his wedding, said he can think of no better way for people to express themselves.\n"Music can speak for you in the best way," Gass said. "It's more than 'I like these songs.' It's 'here's what I'm feeling inside. Here's what I care about. Here's what I love.'"\nThe songs that each person chooses should reflect the type of relationship they are in, Gass said.\nAt his wedding in 1991, Gass and his wife agreed that the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" would play during the actual ceremony. \n"It's the ultimate ode to love," Gass said.\nFor Adriana Guerrero, treasurer of IU Latinos Unidos, the song "Dos Gardenias," by the Cuban group Buena Vista Social Club, best expresses her notions of romance. The song's lyrics, "Te quiero, te adoro, mi vida," translate to "I want you, I love you, my life." \n"Everybody wants to hear that line sometime in their life," Guerrero said. \nSome people choose songs that say what they are feeling. Others choose them for nostalgia.\nSmith said she selected Gigi D'Agostino's "L'Amour Toujours (I'll Fly With You)" because it always reminds her of "an amazing first date I had with a really awesome guy."\nFew people today would recognize a Dickinson verse. \n"Vanquished my soul will know, by but a simple arrow, sped by an archer's bow," she wrote helplessly.\nBut most know the Beatles or Marvin Gaye by heart. \n"People use to look to poets to express what they were feeling," Gass said. "Music has taken the place of that"