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Melissa Block and Audie Cornish read emails from listeners about a daughter's connection to her father through Don McLean's album "American Pie."
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Don McLean's song helped a listener "bridge a gap between [her] long-deceased father and baby boy."
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Listener Melanie Cowart says things were rarely easy for her parents — one of whom was black and one white — in Depression-era Missouri. Porter's "Begin the Beguine," one of their favorite songs, became a fitting symbol of their relationship.
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A child of Hollywood royalty explains how, in her childhood, one band opened her mind to "the mathematics of music."
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An NPR listener spent a chunk of his childhood making the journey from "Back in the U.S.S.R." to "Good Night," playing his father's copy of The Beatlesover and over. The album was destroyed, but the son's love for music and for his father remain to this day.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author says he'll never forget his mother's renditions of Nat King Cole songs.
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A listener grew up hating her dad's musical taste, especially Warren Zevon's "Werewolves in London."
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Saxophonist and composer Ravi Coltrane — son of John and Alice — says his mother's love of symphonic music provided a childhood soundtrack for him and his siblings.
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The Irish singer-songwriter explains how a Pat Boone song helped his mother through a troubled marriage.
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The mandolin virtuoso, best known for his bands Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, says he was sitting on the floor in a diaper the first time he heard "The Girl from Ipanema."