why can't download songs from itunes?

99% of the time this is due to Norton or McAfee blocking itunes.

Go read up on how to set up that lousy software to allow iTunes, or better yet, delete it from your PC and get some freeware that works better.

Well they do different thing. Zone Alarm blocks unsolicited communications, so you'd want to make sure that firewall is allowing itunes.exe to communicate with the mother ship, usually expressed as any computer it wants to communicate with.
The anti-spyware apps often can block services from loading at startup so you'd want to make sure they allow c:\program files\itunes\ituneshelper.exe
and
probably c:\program files\quicktime\qttask.exe
Under running processes I have ipodservice.exe, itunes.exe and ituneshelper.exe
Hope that helps.

has anyone figured out how to get around this because mcafee is bad and won't let me do it either

Can you stream songs through other sources like Amazon.com or Rolling Stone.com - I'm wondering if your internet connection is flaky. (Too many bad nic's in my past..., I know.)

I'm going to give you the same summary of troubleshooting docs that I've assembled for other folks. Sorry I have to run...
anti-spyware apps - Do you have any running? Can you try opening iTunes while they are turned off?

malware - Have you run an anti-spyware app (Ewido seems to come highly recommended) to try and clean out any unwanted programs?

Norton Security, though I have run it with iTunes okay.

A bad installation, which might be corrected with a complete uninstall of iTunes and Quicktime, followed by a re-boot and a re-install. Also search the boards for standalone to see strategies dealing with correcting a bad install by installing the standalone version of QuickTime.

And http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93976

Conflicts with other programs launched at StartUp. See the note at Apple about using msconfig to suspend the launch of programs at startup and identify any potential conflicts - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302538

And this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1163105&#1163105 contains information about a specific piece of malware that interferes with iTunes and a link to a thread on removing it.