Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood always makes me cringe
I used to have very long hair, half way down my back. On my 35th birthday, my missus said she was going to take me out for a meal and a night in a hotel. Anyway, getting ready to go, I was blowdrying my hair in the bedroom with the stereo turned up and "Relax" came on. So I'm standing in front of the mirror, naked, dancing around and singing along drying my hair with a pink and yellow hairdryer when my youngest brother threw open the door. Unfortunately, all of my family and most of my friends behind him shouted "surprise!". The surprise party was certainly a surprise.
To this day, even after 12 years, if "Relax" is heard by any of my family or friends they point at me and laugh.
(peewee13, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:21, Reply)

buttercup
A friend of mine told me that he really liked that "build me a buttercup" song. Why? I asked, it's horrible.

"It was playing at my girlfriend's house, when their dog came in and started trying to hump me" he explained.

So now, whenever I hear that song, I think of my friend being assaulted by a great dane in front of his girlfriend's horrified parents.

I have no idea why that makes him like it.
( monkeon schmonkeon, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:53, Reply)

Every time I hear Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer"
I remember the scars I have on my knees. I won an air guitar competition to that, and did a full on rock knee slide for the solo. However, in my torn kneeless jeans, I stipped the skin off one knee down to the gristly cap and severely mauled the other, because the dancefloor surface was a bonded concrete grit.

Still won though
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:28, Reply)

that alton towers theme
always reminds me of alton towers.
(spastic_lequeer, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:06, Reply)

Moby - Go!
A while back I used to interview visiting pop starlets for the local listings mag. I was on a roll too, having managed to have the last go on the soon-to-be-dead guy out of The Shamen (remember them?) only the month before.

This time it was the the turn of Moby, on his first UK tour and riding high in the charts with his monsyllabic rave anthem *Go!*.

The gig was fantastic, repetitive beats slammed out of the dry ice & every so often a tiny bald head appeared from behind a euphoric wall of piano breakdowns to yell the title of his monster hit. In keeping with the intelligent pop star image the little chap was cultivating, his girlfriend sat in the wings throughout, ignoring the show and reading Dostoyevsky.

After his slot our born again vegan hero retired back stage, only to find his tiny dressing room full of the gak-hoovering monster mates of the promoters intent on forcing all kinds of chemical up his self righteously drug free nostrils. It was with these gentlemen he was spending the night. There was no chance of conducting an interview in this environment and little Moby obviously extremely uncomfortable, looking more like a terrified rabbit than a future producer of classy advertising muzak. So back to my place he came, girlfriend in tow, to stay in my spare room.

In morning, he behaved oddly, refusing to touch toast because *there may be something in the bread*... apparently orange juice and muesli were fine. He then disappeared to the loo, after which I was to give him a lift to his train.

He was gone for some time.

Eventually I decided to see if he was OK. Just as I was about to knock on the door, he rushed out, muttering he was ready to go.

In the car he was very quiet.

After dropping him at the station, I returned home & noticed a puddle under the toilet door.

I glanced inside.

The floor was soaked! The cistern handle was hanging off, paper strewn over the floor and in the bowl nestled a single, perfect popstar turd.

I washed it away with a bucket of water. The repairs cost me £40.

To this day, whenever I hear *Go!*, I feel a little bald head rush past me, just out of my line of vision.
(auawsha, Tue 29 Mar 2005, 15:45, Reply)

People Are Strange/Cry Little Sister
From the Lost Boys soundtrack album. I was 16/17 at the time and utterly bessotted with a girl at school, who also lived in my village.
We became friends and I occasionally popped over to her house for a coffee and a chat.

What she didn't know was that I thought that she was an angel (in the romantic sense).
I got the impression that she kind of liked me a tiny bit too, but then reading signals has never been one of my strong points.

It was 1989/90 and the Lost Boys was still on the movie hot-list. I bought the soundtrack and copied those two tracks for her to take away when she went away on holiday to France with her family.

I came so close to telling her how I really felt about her several times- or at least asking her out on an official date... but never went through with it.

I live with that regret to this day. And every time I hear either of those tunes it takes me right back there.


She moved away with her family and I'm led to understand that she later married my namesake!... A spooky slap in the face for me every time I think about it.


Regret is a terrible thing to live with.

If only people weren't so damn protective of their feelings... the world would be a much bett..... ok, you get the picture.


Length, circumference...? It's not the size of the nail, it's the hammer that drives it in!
(IcePimp, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 14:55, Reply)

Fight for your right to party
By the beastie boys.
Smashed a car into a lamp post.
Thought we were dead.
We weren't.

so we got high.
(WOGAN'S WIG FIXER, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 13:37, Reply)

The theme from Sportsnight
Puts the fear into me, the fear of it being Sunday night and you haven't done your homework.
( Bad Horsey Bring back Dr. Ubes Rub!, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 12:54, Reply)

Love it
Nirvana's bleach album reminds me of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Because I got the game and album on the same day and played them over and over.

Perhaps this is why he shot himself.

Angels by Robbie Williams reminds me how dense the poor are.
(Taco Tickler, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:42, Reply)

Hang on!
Before you post, I’m writing a program to automatically combine replies to the previous QOTWs about your most beautiful moment and the worst record ever. If you’re thinking about posting something about the birth of your first child, when you met your other half or that sunset in Thailand, don’t worry: It will all be automated. Bish Bash Bosh – No need to post. The results should be on there by next Friday. Come back then.
(Scoobs, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:21, Reply)

and another one...
Elton John's 'Are you ready for bumlove?' was always on the radio when I did a summer job a few years back. I couldn't stand listening to it, so whenever it came on the radio, I'd take the opportunity to nip off to the lavs and beat off some love wee. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best Pavlov's dog-style association to make.
(spastic_lequeer, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 11:13, Reply)

The only bad memory I have of their divorce...
When I was around three, my parents split up. A year or so after that, Human League's "Don't You Want Me" was a hit. And, one day, while we were driving around, my dad told me "The next time you hear this song, you tell your mommy that this song is about me and her, okay?"

And then, one day, it was on the radio while I was helping her tidy around the house. And I told her. And then she got upset and had to leave the room.

Thanks, Dad. Now that's in my head every time the damned song is on.
( Sydney Bintstow, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 21:04, Reply)

Clocks
I was playing Coldplay's "Clocks" while driving into a California sunset in September 2002, when I saw a strange contrail rapidly heading west into the sunset. First time I ever saw such a thing: a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile heading from Vandenburg Air Force Base to Kwajalein Atoll, many thousands of miles away in the Pacific.

The missile was many hundreds of miles away, but with good visibility in the gloaming, it was possible to see the rocket stage. The contrail changed from dense smoke into a translucent glimmering perfect cone, as the upper stages of the missile ripped into the mesosphere. It was gorgeous and scary at the same time.

When I hear "Clocks", I sense nuclear annihilation is near and my time on this Earth is over.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 20:09, Reply)

Youre The One....
For Me Fatty..
by Morrissey. It now reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. Because she was fat and i loved her, and now i dont. Curses.
(mynameisnotgoodge, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 20:05, Reply)

Creep
Creep by Radiohead - it takes me back to a teenage party. Sat in a basement with all my mates and the boy I really fancied at the time. This song comes on and someone turns out all the lights so it is pitch black. And I sit in the darkness and wait. Listening to the song. For that particular boy to come and snog me. In the darkness.

Of course, when someone eventually switched the lights on again he was happily snogging someone else. But whenever I hear that song I am transported back to the pitch black and the hopeful anticipation of that 3 minutes.
(kitteny_goodness, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 15:48, Reply)

...
Whenever I hear that Christmas classic "We Three Kings" I get all dizzy and light headed. During my first year of comprehensive school my music teacher bullied me into doing a solo in front of all the parents and teachers. Being a little nervous about it my singing is not up to my usual standard, in fact it is quite awful, I’m singing in the wrong key with a really wobbly voice and mumbling some random words, I start panicking and begin to sing faster, so fast that I lose my breath and faint, in the process I fall off the stage and into the head teacher’s lap.

Apologies for length
(Badger McAdams, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 12:25, Reply)

Turn it up, pa-pa aaaaahhhhhh
For reasons I have never managed to work out, the dodgy indie club I used to go to in the late eighties always played 'Orinoco Flow' by Enya before going into the music the punters wanted (Wonder Stuff, Sisters of Mercy and the Cult, mostly).

When ever I hear it, and it still gets played quite a lot, I taste snakebite and black, smell fag smoke and patchouli oil and get the urge to find a goth girl in black lace and blacker lip stick and try and put my hand up her skirt.
(skitster, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 12:02, Reply)

The Bangles: If She Knew What She Want
Susanna Hoffs (sorry if I spelled that wrong). Man she was a hottie.

My Brother got tickets to see them in concert and we went, as you do. The tickets he had gotten were from my brother-in-law who had been a subscriber to Merryweather Post Pavilion (in Columbia, MD) for YEARS, so they were DEAD Center, front row.

They get to that song and Susanna squats down right in front of my brother and I (I was 16 and my brother was 22). SQUATTED right in front of us, showing me her panties. It was the first time I had ever seen a Superstars knickers.

Every time I hear that song I see those dark eyes, her squatted there and singing solefully to my Brother and I and all I could do was stare right at her minge-mound under those white panties. It was beautiful. And she KNEW. I think she figured I was too "clean cut" and needed a good pooty shot. When she finished she simply stood up and smiled down at me, knowingly.

I was a hero at school the following day.

No apologies for girth, blame Susanna Hoffs, not me!

Sic Semper Tyrannis!
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Wed 30 Mar 2005, 23:02, Reply)

U2 vs. Pink Floyd
My brother commited suicide when he was 22 (I was 18)...we were talking about some special music to play at the funeral and had settled on "MLK" by U2...one of his favourite bands...we went to see him at the undertakers the next day - a harrowing experience, but beautiful as well. I was not sleeping so well and started awake at 2:58am with the radio playing next to my bed....the song they played was Pink Floyd, On the Turning Away, closely followed by Learning to Fly....no guesses to what we played at the funeral - PF was my brothers real favourite and Momentary Lapse of Reason was never out of his tape player in the car....

Two magical songs which still make me grin like a fool with tears in my eyes!! 13 years on...

Sorry about the length - it's hereditary
(essbeenz there done that, Wed 30 Mar 2005, 13:16, Reply)

En Vogue
A couple of years ago i lived in a flat with neighbours that left a bit to be desired.

I was frantically trying to write my dissertation, in the middle of a very messy break up and my neighbour played Dont Let Go by En Vogue on reapeat at full volume all day and all night. Now when i hear it (which admittedly is far less frequently) it takes me back to those traumatic times.

On a lighter note, the other day i got a packet of Frazzles and opened it and found a Monster Munch inside. Delighted.
(betterpants, Tue 29 Mar 2005, 13:31, Reply)

Misheard lyrics.
The Who's,'Tommy' always makes me smile. I had a big black cat from 1977-1994, a real talker. When I sang along my old cat would answer me with a loud, squawky 'meow'. He thought I was singing to him, "Ptolemy can you hear me? Ptolemy can you see me?..." etc. He was a great cat, I miss him.
(OGH, Tue 29 Mar 2005, 2:13, Reply)

REM - everybody hurts
Everytime I hear this song or drive on a certain part of a motorway up near Perth, I always think of my best mate. He had called me at work in great distress saying that he couldn't go on and that he was ending it. Drove like a looney from Glasgow to Aberdeen to try and get there and stop him, wondering what the hell I was going to find when I got there. Anyway to cut a long story, made it in time and was driving him back to glasgow, when this song came on. Didn't think it was the best song he could hear at the time, but how do you change the station if he is thinking the same thing. Always think of those mad 24 hours now when I hear it.
(Billy Sastard, Mon 28 Mar 2005, 1:22, Reply)

I can really relate to Radiohead's Amnesiac, because, umm...
( B3tan Housewife, Sun 27 Mar 2005, 2:00, Reply)

Street Spirit : Radiohead
I was driving back from work on New-Years Eve 1996, when the radio was doing a flashback of the year’s big stories. In March of that year, an evil little f*cker called Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland and fired 105 rounds into a class of thirty 4-6 year olds, killing fifteen and one adult.

Whilst the spokesperson from the Snowdrop trust calmly spoke the names of the children and the manner of their deaths, the radio played Street Spirit by Radiohead, a song up until that moment that I loved.

Eleven years later, I can't hear that track without being transported to a stationary car on the hard shoulder of the A3 and my uncontrollable sobbing.

Apologies for distinct lack of humour...
( Linbox has a serious dunk habit, Fri 25 Mar 2005, 20:43, Reply)

Gosh, this is cheesy
Remember I said about meeting my dad for the first time last year?
Well, after I got home, we were watching the Wizard of Oz, and now "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" always brings tears to my eyes, because as I was flying home all I could think was:

"And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true"
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 25 Mar 2005, 8:06, Reply)

I'm having such a good time
Every time I hear Don't Stop Me Now by Queen, it reminds me of the time I was barricaded in a pub surrounded by zombies.

Happy days.
(CheesyChimp, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 22:53, Reply)

Air Hostess
never fails to bring back memories of the time I bludgeoned Busted into tiny pieces with a pickaxe and fed their remains to giraffes at the zoo by secreting them in leaves. But that may have just been a sweet, sweet dream.
( Malchick, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 21:56, Reply)

Jimi Hendrix - voodoo child
MY dads mate plays bass for edbanger and the nosebleeds and gave me the odd lesson here and there.

He taught me the bass line to voodoo child and then picked up his guitar and proceeded to do a amazing solo and singing.

Everytime i hear voodoo child i picture a 40 odd year old bald white man instead of jimi
( Gaz, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 20:38, Reply)

Boys of Summer by Don Henley
...this song always brings me back to the early '90s and a relationship that had me headed toward redundancy. In the end, I got dumped for some other bloke, at the end of the summer of 1993. To this date, this song still has powerfully negative imagery in my head and I switch it off the instant I hear it.

Likewise, "Touch" by Wolfsheim has powerfully negative impact as well, it being the relic of a relationship that went FABULOUSLY bad. However, this is a really neat song and I really like it, so I am trying valiantly to reclaim it from the wreckage of that particular association.
( ronin9026, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 17:25, Reply)

The theme to "The Magic Roundabout"...
...fuck, that tune still chills me to the core. Hearing it weeknites on the TV as a kid meant that it was 5:40pm - 5 minutes to make yourself scarce/hide/pray before dad arrived home from work to "vent his frustrations" on you.
I never really thought about this until now, but if anyone ever wanted to stalk me, all they'd need to do would be to phone me at 5:40pm and play a certain recording down the phone: "...der de de derder, der de de derder..."

(Funnily enough, I have no such traumatic memories on hearing "Hectors House" and I'm pretty sure that it was in the same timeslot a few years later.)

edit: Apologies for moroseness.
edit #2: Only just noticed this weeks' b3ta challenge! Hah - a pictureless entry maybe?!
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 24 Mar 2005, 17:16, Reply)