We love music because it moves us — especially music that holds memories. And nothing builds memories like doomed teenage relationships with the German teacher’s niece, which is why I’m here today to talk to you, for what is the first and most likely only time, about Poco.

They were never one of the genre’s best-selling groups, but Poco helped lay the foundation for the wildly popular country/rock sound that helped bands like the Eagles sell millions of records in the ’70s. Just ask Randy Meisner, who helped found Poco, quit the group after its first album, and went on to help found the Eagles — or ask Timothy B. Schmit, who replaced Meisner in Poco…and then went on to replace him again in the Eagles.

Poco’s influence was always larger than its commercial profile, and band members came and went almost constantly, but the group still managed to release 18 albums between 1969 and 1984, at which point the ’80s finally seemed to catch up with them. Critics never stopped waxing rhapsodic about the band’s early material, or lamenting its lost potential, which is why 1989’s reunion of the original members — a version of the group that had, ironically, never managed to record together — was greeted warmly by the press.

Somewhat surprisingly, the reunion album (titled Legacy) was even sort of a hit. This had more to do with its slick ’80s production (handled mainly by David Cole — yes, that David Cole) than any real pent-up demand for new Poco product, but the guys must have enjoyed hearing “Call It Love” on the radio, even if they didn’t write it.

Either way, I enjoyed hearing it. I lived about two miles from my high school, and made the walk to and from home with a Walkman clipped to my waistband — and even if I never found the rest of Legacy to be much more than reheated corn, I played “Call It Love” so many times that I can’t hear two seconds of those ringing guitars without flashing back to those walks, and afternoons in the dugout with Valerie.

As I said, Valerie was the German teacher’s niece — but she didn’t share her uncle’s affection for dialects, or for learning in general, as far as I could tell. She had a lot more in common with her mom, whose pot dealer was Valerie’s boyfriend. Oh, did I mention she had a boyfriend? One who sold drugs, and probably could have made short work out of a mulleted weakling who mooned over adult contemporary Poco ballads in his spare time?

Looking back, I’m 99% certain that Valerie looked at me the way a kitten looks at a ball of yarn. She just wanted no-strings fun, and she must have seen my insistence on an actual relationship as the unintentionally humorous act of breathtaking stupidity that it was. I thought I was being chivalrous, but what I should have known — and what I ultimately learned from all this, thanks, Valerie — is that chivalry is wasted on a girl whose idea of romance is hiding gay porn in your locker.

There’s a happy ending to this story — before the end of the year, I’d moved on, to a girl whose first words to me were “Why are you dating that slut?” — but since it leads into another doomed teenage relationship, I’ll just end here, and leave you with the “Call It Love” video.

It was the fall of 1999 when I met Good Nicole (thus named to provide distinction from Bad Nichole, who you’ll meet later), and in retrospect, dating her was probably not a very good idea. I was in the middle of a strange period: Running my label, recording my solo album, and dealing with the terrible consequences of hiring an ex-girlfriend (also to be introduced later) as my publicist. During the six months or so that we dated, I’m not sure Good Nicole and I were in the same time zone for more than a week at a time; during one particularly busy stretch, I went from the Bay Area to San Diego to Hawaii to Cleveland and back again.

Still, even if someone was bound to get burned, we had some good times while it lasted. During one of our earliest conversations, when she found out I had a “career” in “music,” she suggested that I check out her favorite unsigned artist (you guessed it, Matt Nathanson). I dutifully ordered up a few of his CDs and was sufficiently impressed to make plans for us to attend a Nathanson gig the next weekend.

As I said, it was a weird time in my life — one I have fond memories of, and even if those reasons don’t ultimately have a lot to do with Nicole, she’s still part of the happy swirl I flash back to when I hear Nathanson’s “Loud” (download). (Which is sort of ironic, given that “Loud” isn’t remotely a happy song, but whatever.) Hearing “Far & Wide” (download), the opening track on my solo album, has the same effect.

None of it was meant to last — not the label, not the music, and not Good Nicole. By the following spring, we were kaput, after weeks of callous disregard on my part that I told myself was schedule-induced but, looking back, had more to do with the selfish boredom of a twentysomething idiot with too much access to too many unimportant things. I still flinch a little when I think about the way I acted back then, but we’ve both obviously moved on to better things, so all’s well that ends well, right?

As I mentioned, this was a totally one-sided relationship, at least as far as anything more than friendship was concerned. This became clearer to me over time, but at sixteen, it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a girl who’s sending mixed signals and one who’s just trying to be polite. When my daughter is old enough to care about these things, one of the first things I think I’ll tell her is that it’s more important to be completely honest than it is to try and save someone’s feelings — you never know when, for instance, your actions will be so grossly misinterpreted that they lead the person in question to, I don’t know, drive halfway across the country to visit you. Unannounced.

That’s another story, though. When I hear Jude Cole’s “Hallowed Ground” (download), I think about the spring of 1990, when Jill’s family moved from the Bay Area to Colorado, which happened to be around the same time I realized I still had feelings for her, and had made a huge mistake by getting involved with someone else who just happened to be one of Jill’s best friends. (Again, another story.)

It’s kind of a corny song, yes, but I think it’s easy to see how it might appeal to a melodramatic teenage wiener — and even now, those beds of acoustic guitars sound good to me, and the line “I was your trouble and you were my friend” still rings true.