This past week has seen an absolutely astonishing uptick in bogus TrackBacks. Spam Karma 2 is duly shuffling them off to Buffalo, as it should, but I do wish these people would go back to fellating farm animals and leave us bloggish types alone.

I’ve already taken a shot at a Valentine’s Day Mix — and, being properly cynical, I did it in October — but I’d hardly consider it definitive, and I’m always delighted to spot a workable alternative.

This compilation by a Michigan law student looks promising enough that I may actually put it together myself, and damn the iTunes expense. It’s more contemporary than mine, which cuts off in the 1970s: the leadoff track is “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” by the Jayhawks, which is not the song of the same title that every single Motown act seems to have recorded at one time or another.

Rather a lot of songs begin with this admonition, and the young lady with the weapon (she was actually selling hosiery, but who’s to know?) might be in a mood to enforce it. My first search for “Don’t” songs produced a list of nearly eight hundred; restricting it to those actually beginning with “Don’t” cut it back by three-fourths, and these were the ones that made the final, um, cut.

Track listing for 111130-2:

1. Electric Light Orchestra: Don’t Let Me Down
2. Elvis Presley: Don’t Be Cruel
3. Patty Duke: Don’t Just Stand There
4. Joe South: Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home
5. Herman’s Hermits: Don’t Go Out into the Rain
6. Beverly Bremers: Don’t Say You Don’t Remember
7. The Orlons: Don’t Hang Up
8. The Beach Boys: Don’t Worry Baby
9. The Beatles: Don’t Let Me Down
10. The Marvelettes: Don’t Mess with Bill
11. Paul Revere and the Raiders: Don’t Take It So Hard
12. Bettye Swann: Don’t Touch Me
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Don’t Do Me Like That
14. The Animals: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
15. Petula Clark: Don’t Give Up
16. Crowded House: Don’t Dream It’s Over
17. Gerry and the Pacemakers: Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying
18. Peppermint Rainbow: Don’t Wake Me Up in the Morning, Michael
19. Elton John: Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
20. Della Reese: Don’t You Know
21. The Human League: Don’t You Want Me
22. The Searchers: Don’t Throw Your Love Away
23. The Buckinghams: Don’t You Care
24. Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over
25. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds: Don’t Pull Your Love
26. The Band: Don’t Do It

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