Heart of Gold (Neil Young, 1972) Good start. Easy chords. John executed harmonica duties with grace and feeling. What famous songstress sang backup with Neil on this song? (John)

Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis, 1956) The first of his 75 Top 40 hits was interesting to play because it was all seventh chords. (WendySue)

It's A Heartache (Bonnie Tyler, 1978) I never thought much of this raspy-voiced ballad, but as a group we played it smoothly. It was one of our best efforts. (Arlene)

I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles, 1964) We were wildly enthusiastic on our first take, and therefore played too fast. The second time there was a saner tempo. (Arlene)

Da Doo Ron Ron (Crystals, 1963) Phil Spector produced these Brooklyn women (whose other hits included He's A Rebel and Then He Kissed Me). What a great singalong. (Ken)

Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash, 1963) If we were to merge our group with a mariachi band, we'd do an even better version of this song than the already good version done with our humble ukuleles. The timing on the verses was a little tough, but we shone on the chorus. (Ken)

Let's pause to introduce the band. We had Jim, Jim, John, Tom, Joe, Liz, Keith, Jen, Ken, Larry, Arlene and first-timer Vito. Chris and Nathan, better known as that pop sensation, One and A Half Strings, were back from their sellout concert tour of Japan, having earned millions, while bravely fighting off hordes of teenage girls. I had feared that Cris and Tom had been eaten by wolves, or worse, had lost interest in the ukulele, since we hadn't seen them in a few months, but it turns out they were only hibernating.

Put A Little Love In Your Heart (Jackie DeShannon, 1969) We were doing well up until that pesky modulation into the cruel flat chords. Nathan was able to give us the Bb Eb and Ab on guitar, but most of us gave up. (Dan)

Achy Breaky Heart (Billy Ray Cyrus, 1992) Miley Cyrus' father hit pay dirt with this silly country song, played endlessly and everywhere 20 years ago, having spread like the flu. (WendySue)

Heartaches By the Numbers (Guy Mitchell, 1959) Remember a few sessions back when we did Singing the Blues and were trying to guess the name of the singer? Here he is again, three years later, with another Number One. (WendySue)

Baby, Now That I Found You (Foundations, 1968) This came out a year before their monster hit Build Me Up, Buttercup. I love this song. Alison Krauss does a nice, restrained cover. (Arlene)

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart (Bee Gees, 1971) After an uncertain start, we gelled on the line, "I could never see tomorrow....." The pre-falsetto, pre-disco Bee Gees were excellent. (Vin)

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Fab Four, 1967) Here are the boys delivering a good rocker while wearing marching-band uniforms. (Arlene)

Deep in the Heart of Texas (Perry Como, 1942) When Pee Wee Herman called his girlfriend, Dottie, from a phone booth near the Alamo, she didn't believe he was really in Texas. To prove it, he sang out, "The stars at night are big and bright......" and all the Texan passersby, wearing cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats, stopped, clapped four times and sang, "Deep in the heart of Texas!" in response. This was a super-easy C to G. We played it twice. Good one, Jennifer.

Cecilia (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970) Here's one from the great Bridge Over Troubled Water album. If you didn't buy this album 45 years ago, drop what you're doing and run out to the record store now. (Do record stores still exist?) There's not a bad song on it. (Nathan)

Heart of My Heart (1926) You can't beat this for nostalgia and melody. In our family, we sang this a thousand times when I was little. There was a singer, a belter, from New Jersey named Jimmy Roselli, a favorite of my father, who did mostly Italian songs, but had a few albums of what he called "saloon songs." We played those records to death. Heart of My Heart was on one of them. This was my favorite song of the night. If we play at an old folks home again, we should consider this. (Gloria)

One Love, One Heart (Bob Marley, 1977) Universal brotherhood is the theme of this reggae song from the ganja-fueled Wailers. Great chorus. (Ken)

Jim made the suggestion that the theme of the next session should be PROTEST songs. Take time to think about it. Besides Bob Dylan and Woodie Guthrie, lots of people have done songs to protest the wars (Edwin Starr), the destruction of nature (Marvin Gaye), women's oppression (Lesley Gore), The Establishment (the Who), The Man (Steppenwolf), poverty (Elvis), lost youth (Mary Hopkin), the pointlessness of existence (Peggy Lee), automation and alienation (Zaeger and Evans), famine (George Harrison) and incivility (Nick Lowe).

I wasn't going to say anything, but I have noticed that our group has been a little too cheerful lately. We might want to rein that in. What better way than to sing songs of gloom and outrage?

The evening ended as it began, with Neil Young's Heart of Gold. To answer the trivia question at the beginning of this essay, Linda Ronstadt sang with Neil on this song. Listen closely. It's a harmony, a small part done beautifully.

-- Dan.