So there I was, streaming Moonlighting in all its Bruce Willis glory. 

There was a scene in Moonlighting that, well — it didn’t change my life. Not exactly. But it holds great significance. Affected me. 

In one episode, a pre-China Beach Dana Delany hires the Blue Moon Detective Agency. It turns out — oops! — she and Bruce Willis’s David Addison were once a thing.  

A thing.  

I wanted to have a thing with Bruce Willis. 

Sure. He’s 20 years older than me. But now — today — I am 20 years older than he was on Moonlighting. 

So it all works out. 

Dana Delany spends the first half of the episode accidentally-on-purpose grazing Addison with her various body parts. 

I can’t even with her. She’s so clearly playing him and he doesn’t see it and he needs to see it because she is a killer so frosty Ernest Shackleton is like, “No. But thanks.” 

Now, Maddie knows this old flame is a killer. Of course she does. She knows because she’s jealous.  

She just doesn’t know she’s jealous. I mean, there are still like four seasons until David and Maddie do the thing I wasn’t allowed to know about in 1985. 

Addison and that hussy meet. Clandestinely.  

In a public parking lot. 

Really, Addison. That should have been your first clue she wasn’t there to do the thing I wasn’t allowed to know about in 1985. She meets you there because she’s going to kill her husband and have you witness it so you can be like, “he shot first!” 

Spoiler. The husband didn’t shoot first. 

I set the moment perfectly when I got to this episode.  

Alone. A brownie from Johnson Hall Coffee House at the ready. 

I wanted everything just right because on Nov. 12, 1985 — the day this episode aired — that was the day I discovered The Isley Brothers. 

And I wanted to relive every second of that discovery. 

Addison and that depraved ex of his stand entwined, swaying next to a car. When they finally, as Indy would say, swap spit, The Isley Brothers’ song “This Old Heart of Mine” plays. 

Both plaintive and passionate, it is something a couple could dance to. 

Or play while doing the thing I wasn’t allowed to know about in 1985. 

From that day to this, “This Old Heart of Mine” is my favorite song. 

From The Isley Brothers I discovered Motown. The Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas and Marvin Gaye and The Jackson 5. 

How had I made it 11 years, six months, and 29 days in this world without knowing about Motown? 

Well, there’s a reason I love the Carpenters, why I paraphrase the great Man in Black. 

Motown, The Beatles — they didn’t get a lot of play in my childhood home. 

But I know every line of “The Gambler.” I know Grandma’s feather bed was nine feet high and six feet wide.  

And when my husband — sheepishly, with verbalized regret — asked me the morning we held our hours-old daughter if I grabbed the dry cleaning before going into labor, I had a response. 

“Baby,” I said, “I not only grabbed the dry cleaning but I grocery shopped, made $200 editing an article, and gave birth. I am woman, dude. Hear me roar.” 

Because, you know, Helen Reddy. 

So there was good music in my house. 

But maybe this is why I think Motown is the best music on the planet that’s not in “Hamilton” or “Hey Jude.” 

Put your dukes down. I’m not going to fight you on this. 

Maybe later. I have a deadline here. 

So you see, this scene in Moonlighting was pivotal for both me and the plot. 

So I sat there a few weeks ago, nibbling my brownie. Waiting. 

Waiting for The Isley Brothers. 

But they must have been hanging with Godot or something because they never arrived. 

To stream Moonlighting, some music had to change. Including, apparently, The Isley Brothers.

Talk about hurting me more and more, am I right? 

This is not a new problem. China Beach itself is not streaming due to the cost of music rights. 

According to The New York Times, playing a song on a TV show can cost as much as $40,000.  

Yahoo! Entertainment explains to keep songs sung by Moonlighting’s characters — and Al Jarreau’s original show music — other melodies had to, well, break away. 

That’s from “This Old Heart of Mine.” 

But you wouldn’t know that from Moonlighting. 

I felt like I did when Indy told me he didn’t come up with my name.  

Unmoored. Adrift. 

Ugh. That’s probably how it feels to scuba dive in more than the 20 feet I’ve dived in so far. 

Could this day get any worse? 

I felt betrayed. By Moonlighting, of all things. 

I mean, I’m trying hard to hide my hurt inside.  

But I love you, Moonlighting. 

So I’ll take you back. A hundred times, I’ll take you back. 

That’s also from “This Old Heart of Mine.” 

Huh. Wonder if I have to pay The Isley Brothers for that?