If I had to pick a single song as my favorite ever, it would be Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” It’s not a decision I can defend, because, well, you can’t. You like what you like, you love what you love. But because music is such an important part of each book in 46. Ascending, it makes sense that “Time After Time” would be the very first song I linked to, in my first electronic novel.

A little over a year ago, when I gave each of my first three books a light edit, and checked all the links, I also re-evaluated the links to the each of the songs and decided in each case to find a video of a special live performance that I thought captured the essence of the song-writer and singer. I was so happy to stumble upon this simple but stunning version of Cyndi Lauper performing “Time After Time” live on the sixth season of Australian Idol in 2008.

Enjoy the video. Below it is the excerpt from x0 that refers to the song.

Over the next few weeks, Lola finished working her way through the interpretation of the small structure located in one corner of her company’s lease. As happened so often in the oil business, her company had subleased the drilling rights from another company which had done so from another company, and now the term of the lease was near expiration and either a well would need to be drilled soon or the lease would need to be relinquished untested.

Because of the convenient fact that oil floats on water (check your salad dressing), one looks for oil in high places where the tiny coarse rock grains have enough spaces in between them to hold a good bit of oil. A rock with ten percent of its volume as space is a good rock to someone in Lola’s profession. Find the highest spot in it, put a nice tight rock like shale above it, which has virtually no spaces into which the wily oil can sneak out over the eons, and someone like Lola gets the message. Drill here.

This part of her job sat somewhere between treasure hunting and puzzle solving, and Lola had to admit that her day-to-day work would not have made a bad 3D video game if someone added a little bit of music and some glossy effects. And, okay, maybe a car chase or two. Lola enjoyed herself as she twisted and turned her 3D visualization of the rocks on her computer screen, humming as she looked for shifts in the rock layers known as faults.

“If you’re lost you can look / And you will find me / Time after time.”

Cyndi Lauper’s 1984 hit Time After Time had once been a favorite of hers, and now that Lola thought about it, it made good music to prospect by. She was surprised she hadn’t remembered the song for years. She sang a little louder.

“If you fall I will catch you / I’ll be waiting—”

“Time after time.” Bob, the older engineer in the group, joined in her song as he walked by her door. “Geez Lola,” he said, “I’ve had that song in my head all damn morning. What are you doing singing it?”

“No idea. Maybe we listened to the same radio station on the way to work?” she guessed.

“I only listen to my iPod,” he replied.

The fact is that I started each of my novels off with a special song. Click to read about y1’s “A Whole New World“, z2’s “Fame“, c3’s “A Texas Kind of Way” and d4’s “Lights“.

(You can buy a digital version of “Time After Time” from Amazon. You can also purchase x0 from Amazon.)

(Note that the lyrics to TIME AFTER TIME were used by permission: Words and Music by ROB HYMAN and CYNDI LAUPER Copyright 1983 DUB NOTES and RELLLA MUSIC CORP. All Rights for DUB NOTES Administered by WB MUSIC CORP. All rights on behalf of Rellla Music Corp. administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved.)