It's always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.

Falling in love with Renee was not the kind of thing you walk away from in one piece. I had no chance. She put a hitch in my git-a-long.

'I'll Tumble 4 Ya' has to be one of the most ridiculous hit singles that any international superstars have given the world.

Unlike me, Renee was not shy; she was a real people-pleaser. She worried way too much what people thought of her, wore her heart on her sleeve, expected too much from people, and got hurt too easily. She kept other people's secrets like a champ, but told her own too fast. She expected the world not to cheat her and was always surprised when it did.

The hungry feeling and the lonely feeling merged until it was hard to tell them apart.

But MTV relishes its vestigial role as a star maker, so every year it puts all its clout into making the VMAs the biggest, splashiest, loudest show-biz extravaganza of the year, honoring all this music for existing, after a year of paying barely any attention to it.

The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.