To discuss Music I Loved Fridays: The. Song. Is. Mine.

It's been a long time since I've put up a Music I Loved Friday post, but let's get it going again. As a reminder, MILF is all about taking a look back at the music that I grew up with. It is not about your mom.

Who gets the honor this month?

I'm sorry that you seem to be confused. He belongs to me. The boy is mine.



You go, Brandy. No, YOU go, Monica. Will somebody just tell me who this damn boy belongs to?

It's June 1998. I'm about to start my sophomore year of high school, unaware yet that in a few months, Britney Spears would hit me baby one more time. Right now, the divas on the chart are Brandy and Monica.

Secretly, I had liked Monica's debut song, "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of 'Dem Days)" which came out when she was just 15. I was even younger, and so for all I knew, "one of 'dem days" was a girl who was in a bad mood. If you had asked me at the time, a period was nothing more than punctuation. Ah, youthful ignorance. I could have saved years of arguments and headaches with girls if I had only heeded Monica's advice and just realized women have one of 'dem days one week a month, or, in some cases, every week of every month.

Brandy was popular too, and why not, since her smile is wide enough to eat a banana sideways. But putting the two of them in the same song? I could barely handle Mariah Carey and Wanya Morris trying to out-oohahhhoohhaah each other on "One Sweet Day."

Looking back, there was no denying the power of "The Boy Is Mine." I mean, it was co-produced by Dallas Austin, and just look at who he went on to work with!

Since I was 15 at the time, I had no idea this song was based on a Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson duet, "The Girl is Mine," or as its now known, "The Girl Is Paul's by Default." I just thought Brandy and Monica had been fighting over some dude - probably like the Fresh Prince or something - and wanted to sing about it.

"The Boy Is Mine" spent 13 weeks on the top of the charts, which proves that at some point in 1998, you liked this song. You probably liked the video, which featured Mekhi Phifer before he went on to star in my cult favorite, Dawn of the Dead, in which he delivered a zombie baby from his pregnant zombie wife.

In hindsight, I'm not sure why the music video didn't have Mekhi asking for the girls to just get drunk and have a threesome, but I guess there are limits to what Carson Daly could show on "TRL." You know, back when MTV played music videos. Not that I can complain. I watch "16 and Pregnant" like it contains the secret to life.

Sadly in the years after, Brandy came out with a sequel, "The Hit-and-Run Is Mine," and is now more famously known as the sister of the guy who gave Kim Kardashian his flesh python in a sex tape. Monica has since carved out a career as "That girl who sang my prom theme" and is no doubt waiting for her invitation to "Dancing with the Stars."