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This is a question The Soundtrack of your Life

Che Grimsdale writes: Now that Simon Cowell's stolen Everybody Hurts, tell us about songs that mean something to you - good, bad, funny or tragic, appropriate or totally inappropriate songs that were playing at key times.

(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 13:30)
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That song from "Colour of Money"
The one that goes "yeah yeah we're back here again"

If I'm playing pool and it;s on it increases my pool skill 100%. When it;s playing I can pot every other ball I hit, not just every 1 in 4.

Yes I'm still crap at pool, but not quite as crap....
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 8:51, 1 reply)
this
the first time i actually "got it" as far as music was concerned - still fuckin love it.

Ten Years After - I am going home - live at Woodstock 1969

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFpfureaCVs
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 8:43, Reply)
My life
A Kid? Bert Kampfert's "Swingin' Safari". It was in my parents record collction.
10-13? Organ Music (So The Beatles, Showtunes etc)
14-18? "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden; this is when I discoverd METAL!
18-19? "Def Con One" by Pop Will Eat Itself during my college year.
20-21 "California' Dreamin'" Mammas and Pappas. The only song me and the first Mrs Kite both liked.
21-29 nothing; just didnt have time for music with other stuff going on. I listened to music but bought very little and this whole era is absolutely meaningless to me; Im just discovering some of these bands now.
30-40 (Now) "29x The Pain" by The Wildhearts; best discovery I ever made. (Or pretty much anything else by them or Ginger).
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 8:09, 1 reply)
Anything that I can change the lryics to, in a Weird Al Yankovic style.
Or that is just plain rude.
Example 1 :Foreigner, I want to know (what love is)
#I wanna know what love is, I want you to blow me #
Example 2 : Destinys Child, I'm a bus driver.
Example 3 : Bon Jovi
We've got to hold on, to my cock
'Cause it doesn't make a difference
If you shake it or not
We've got each other, and that's my cock
of love - we'll give it a s...

We're half way there
Livin' on a prayer
Take my cock and we'll make it - I swear
Livin' on a prayer



Length? usually 3:15
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 7:47, 3 replies)
'Girl From Ipanima',
'The Way To San Jose', and 'Piano Man'.

That's the soundtrack to my lift.
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 6:48, Reply)
I actually prefer
the Tatu version of 'How Soon Is Now' to the Smiths one. No, I'm sorry, the original sounds like one of those 80s 'dance mixes', which weren't differently mixed but just had eight minutes of drums at the end.
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 6:14, Reply)
The specials.
The song "Rat race" reminds me of what some of the other students were like when I was at a grammar school sixth form.

"You plan your conversation to impress the college bar
Just talking about your mother and daddy's Jaguar
Wear your political T-shirt and sacred college scarf
Discussing the world situation, but just for a laugh
"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmkMEoVb6rA

Wintersun's "Death and the healing"
Song that general just feels right when Im in a low/thoughtful mood. Everything about the song is just generally awesome. *Has it on now*

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxMkIm5JxkM
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 4:37, 3 replies)
When I just tried /all for the QOTW board...
Steps cover of Tragedy ran through my head.

Man that sucks...
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 2:35, 1 reply)
There can be only one.........
1985 give or take, I watched Highlander for the first time,what an awesome film,and a brilliant soundtrack by QUEEN,every time I hear Who wants to live for ever,I literally cant speak with emotion,as I was at the time going through the motions with a girl who I knew I would have to finish with.
For her sake as well as mine.

Not so much a soundtrack of my life ,but an instant memory of a time when letting go of someone you love hurt like hell.
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 2:00, Reply)
This song is the soundtrack to all the hours I've spent reading b3ta.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEImD_r6D8o
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 1:50, Reply)
Those. Were. The....
Days, my friend
We thought they'd never end...

I get nostalgic over a nostalgic song. How's that for, er, nostalgia?
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 1:13, 2 replies)
As the feeling (of rage) grows....
I swear the first person I see who says Angels by uber-knob Robbie Williams as it reminds them of the first dance at their wedding, is going to get my steel-toecapped boot right up their arse.
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 1:13, 2 replies)
This song
This song is totally about me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQnw53rNOTs
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 1:01, Reply)
Avalon
I'm all thinking about music now.
This QOTW is a lovely memory trip for me :)

The first time I went to Glastonbury fesival early 80's , in a dodgy old car that kept overheating.
What should have been a 7-8 hour trip at max took nearly 24 hours.
We set off early morning expecting to get there at teatime.
After numerous breakdowns and being pulled over and questioned by police, the poor old car limped to the top of a hill just before dawn and then ground to another halt.
Of course being used to this by now we just sat and waited for the radiator to cool down.
Then as the sun rose and the landscape ahead of was revealed, there in front of us was the Vale of Avalon, and glimmering throught the early mist in the distance was Glastonbury Tor.
At that point Roxy Music 'Avalon" came on the radio.
We looked at each other, grinned and knew everything was going to be just fine.
(, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 0:53, Reply)
No more "I love you"s by The Lover Speaks.
Came out just after Grandad hit the smiling at everything stage of senile dementia.

Hit me hard and still does.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 23:56, Reply)
Hitch hiking
Back in the days when I used to hitch hike everywhere there was usually something playing on a tape or radio in some random vehicle that will always remind me of that journey.
It was also a good way to hear new music i wouldnt normally have chosen to listen to myself.
My favourite memory is when i thought I'd hitch from Yorkshire to Dover to see the White cliffs and the start of construction of the tunnel.
Well I had nothing better to do.
On the last part of the journey I asked the driver what he was playing and he told me David Sanborn.
It stuck in my head and I bought a tape when i got there.
Sitting alone on the headland in blazing sunshine with bees buzzing among the wild flowers, larks singing overhead, while watching all this frantic activity going on far below.
Sax in the headphones of my walkman and the sea shining in front of me.
Total bliss.

Got into Talking Heads hitching across Yorkshire to pick shrooms
Anthrax & Prodigy on the way to Southampton
Blur heading into Exmoor to do my first solo wilderness camp 'Country House' in particular
Bach Cello Suite no 1 to Fife

Theres many more but I wont bore you
But after many years I can still remember the journey and where i was going if i hear any of those pieces of music
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 23:37, 3 replies)
Just over a month old
Back in the early 90s, I DJ'd at an indie club. It was called Loft 23, it was held at The Pigeons on the Romford Road in Stratford E15, and was frequented by the great & good from the University of East London over the road. Me and Tris did the music, Tony did the door, the rest was staff & management. We all three had a love for the somewhat more abrupt end of the musical scale, and couldn't understand why everyone didn't love Psalm 69 by Ministry...but we played Blur and James and the Mondays and so on so all was well. In 1995, Tris and Tony at about the same time moved back to Lincolnshire whence they'd come, and we lost touch.

Skip forward to less than a year ago, and through the miracle of Facebook I make contact with them both; they're still in Lincolnshire, I've moved out to Hampshire. Promises are made to meet up, as you do.

Then on December 15th last year, I found out that Tony had died the night before; heart attack. This info gleaned from a Facebook update, of all things, by a mutual friend. The funeral is set for New Years Eve, and I of course attend.

It was a humanist service, so no religious claptrap, and a few choice songs; two were detailed in the Order Of Service, the last was 'another of Tony's favourites'. I'll let you imagine the looks of joy when the well spoken fifty-something woman leading the service announced that the exit song would be Ministry's 'Jesus Built My Hot Rod'. It's strange to sit full of sadness trying not to laugh at the abject joy of the situation, the ludicrousness, the fact that it's exactly what he would have wanted, the belligerent old sod.

Another song with another memory. Goodbye Tone, may you ding a ling lang your dang a long ling long into eternity.

If you'd care to take something from this: go and see those people you've not seen in years, one day they won't be there to see.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 23:29, Reply)
Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there
When I was young and the Talking Heads song 'This must be the place (Naive Melody)' was released, I thought that this song must be what love felt like. Not insta-love-at-first-sight/everything-is-perfect-fantasyland like most songs about love, but a sort of completeness and joy that could be found even in the imperfect parts. I thought if I could meet someone who made me feel like that song I might be very happy indeed.

For some time, the soundtrack to relationships was better represented by songs like 'Face Up', 'Glory Box', 'Disintegration' and a good number of Morrissey tracks until one day, when I met this tall, sort of quiet fellow who was a friend of a friend and we started spending time together. Just friends, nothing flirtatious, but one evening we were hanging out on my porch, playing records, and he put on his favourite Talking Heads album. When 'This must be the place' came on, he said he thought it was one of the best love songs ever written, expressing love in all its genuine simplicity. Fast forward a few months later, and we've started dating. The song was our dance at the wedding, and this July will be ten years. Simple completeness and joy, every day.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 23:16, 1 reply)
Music was my first love, and it will be my last...
Like, I imagine, a fair number of people, music means far more to me than just "whatever's in the charts". I have several songs which I've heard at perfect moments, both good and bad.

A few years ago I was going out with a girl I was at uni with. This being my first grown-up relationship I was over the moon, head filled with all sorts of happy thoughts about our future, post-graduation, marriage, etc. I didn't voice these thoughts to her but I was quietly confident that she was "the one".

More fool me.

Six months in I noticed that she was getting more distant and withdrawn. I asked what was wrong, got the response of "nothing" and foolishly assumed that it was uni stress bringing her down. So to cheer her up I booked a Travelodge in London, to stay over after I'd taken her to see one of the generic indie bands she was fond of. Throughout the gig she was fidgeting distractedly, but I put this down to the presence of a mutual friend of ours who was also at the gig with us. (Spotted where this is going? You're much smarter than I was.)

After the gig we were hanging round in the venue (Astoria if anyone's setting a scene) when suddenly she turned to look me in the eye for the first time that night.

"James, this isn't working. I've been seeing -mutual friend- for two months and don't want to string you along any more."

No doubt she said more, probably about wanting to still be friends, but all I could focus on was holding myself together. What didn't help was at that moment the soundboard chap decided to play No Surprises by Radiohead. That song and the crushing feeling of despair will forever be linked in my mind.

But the story doesn't end there. Being a manly man I fled, not wanting to be around them (understandably) and wandered round London in a daze. I remember sitting on a bridge over the railway out of King's Cross, half listening listening to a shuffled selection of songs on my mp3 player and waiting for the first train of the morning for me to throw myself under. Then a song came on that penetrated the funk I was in. It was Rilo Kiley's "A Better Son/Daughter" (I'll put up a link to it in the replies when I can) and it could not have been a more apt song to hear at that moment in my life. It was the equivalent of a mate slinging their arm round my shoulders and saying "yeah, life's a bit shit at the moment. But it'll get better, I promise, just fake happiness, until it's second nature".

I must've listened to that song two dozen times on repeat until I felt ready to face the world again. Walking back to Victoria to catch the first train I took a short-cut through Green Park, still listening to Rilo Kiley. As the track changed to With Arms Outstretched (which is that post party glow in song form) the morning sun burst through the clouds, lighting up everything with a spring glow and I just fell to the ground, sobbing with all the emotion that I'd pent up over the night. It was a beautiful sight, and I nearly missed it and many others by taking the easy option.

Apologies for length and spelling errors (writing this on a less than smart phone), this was more cathartic than anything else. Music's really amazing if you just listen.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:58, 2 replies)
One from my Uncle...
My uncle used to be a Policeman. One of his duties was to go to mortuary with any bodies that were taken in due to suspicious circumstances.

Now, it was about a fortnight before Christmas, and he's just arrived at the hospital mortuary with a body that had been found. The window is slightly open to let a little bit of air flow freely around the building, and the doctor doing the PM is measuring the body up.

Just as the doctors hand reaches the inside of the unfortunates groin, the Salvation Army band, who were playing outside the building, piped up with 'Stand Up Stand Up For Jesus'.

My uncle says that he can't keep a straight face when he hears this, and its nearly 30 years since it happened.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:55, Reply)
Ok, this is quite a personal one.
A few years back I had an odd conversation with me mum. As much as I would like to type in something like me saying "Why are you dressed as a German officer?" it was something far more personal and completely spur of the moment. I also believe she hasn't told my sister this, which I genuinely don't know how to tell her about this as I don't know if me mum would deny or confirm what I'm about to type.

I'm from a family of 4; mam, dad, sis and lazy dobber who posts on forums quite often. A few years ago I was helping me mum move some stuff around in her bedroom when I moved an old jewellery box to the other side of her bedroom for her. Out of random curiosity I happened an innocent glance in there, thankfully not being presented with a view of something scarring like some anal beads (thank fuck, must've been kept in a different drawer :p) but I found something that looked odd. It was a hospital arm tag.

It had me mum's name on it, but the date was a good few years, a few before I was born (I think it was sometime in '71). I picked it up and showed it to me mum. She saw it, stopped what she was doing, and calmly sat down on the edge of her bed.
"Did you have an op?"
"Um, I didn't."
"What's it for then?"
"I had your brother."

What the shuddering fuck? I'm almost 30 at the time, and it's the first I've heard of this. My head reels a bit. "Brother?"
She slowly answered; "Well, half-brother actually. Before I met your dad, me and my ex-boyfriend had a baby boy. At the time though he left me when he found out I was pregnant, and I was not long out of school. I didn't have the heart to abort him, but I couldn't look after him either. So somewhere or other your brother was put up for adoption."

Fucking hell. Somewhere out there I've got a bigger half-brother. God knows where though. She didn't keep any details to do with the process, apart from the hospital tag on her arm when she was in the ward. I am very close to my mum too, as she has always been a good listener and friend to me through the years; I've been very lucky.

I didn't say much in response, as I still don't know the full details leading to this. I haven't pressed the issue with my parents as they have been through a lot and both have stood the test of time. I've never mentioned it to my sister as I don't know how she'll react to it. I do feel though that it's not fair that she doesn't know; she's entitled to make any choices concerning what she'd want to pursue if we ever found out who he is.

The thing was I found this out as I myself was becoming a parent; having just married then a few months later finding out we were expecting I literally put this event to the back of my mind and planned for the family which could be rather than a family that could have been. After complications with the birth, being made homeless by a vindictive landlord, my wife being made redundant and being pursued by bailiffs I completely lost this memory.

Then on the off-chance last week after finally feeling relaxed and comfortable in life again, my daughter growing happily in my new home, all debts under control and all the stress of the last two years finally behind me, I turn the TV on and some adverts play on-screen. One of them played a tune...."...he ain't heavy.....he's my brother"

I almost cried.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:28, Reply)
Am I the only person..
...who thinks that "Love Plus One" by Haircut 100 appearing about halfway through the film "Seven" is utterly genius?!?!?
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:28, Reply)
Warning: long, no funnies and definitely cathartic.
In October 2008, I met the man I was going to marry. I knew this from the moment I met him - I was head over heels, there was never going to be anyone else. I'd never loved anyone the way I loved him. It turned out I didn't know who he was at all, and that in fact, to me, he is the worst person on the planet. He broke my heart, completely.

This man's name is David Cameron (MODEDIT: name changed.)

He was everything I ever dreamed of - tall, dark, handsome, a little older than me, had a well paying job in IT and a car, loved maths, sci-fi, comedy, and cheesy rock music, had a fantastic sense of humour, bought me roses and champagne on our first date, charmed me, and my housemates, my friends, in fact everyone he met. That was to be my downfall.

"Do you mean everything you are?"

Time went on, he lived in Warminster, I live in Brighton, he moved to Brighton to be closer to me and to his job in London. He hit a few financial troubles and I used my hard-earned scholarship money to help him out. He wrote off his car, I drove him everywhere. He had fights with his mum and brother, I made him watch Rent to make him cry, then held him while he cried, then told him what he needed to hear. When he was down I picked him back up again.

"Did you know, that everything she ever does, is for you?"

Christmas approached, and at the chemistry christmas social he held me in his arms and told me he loved me. We went home to visit my parents just before christmas and everything went like a dream. I had never been happier. Then the New Year came, and for one reason or another, he was always working the weekend, taking Open University exams, visiting obscure friends. He would never call, had no signal, had no credit. He'd promise to see me and then be hours late or cancel completely, after leaving me hanging around for a few hours, of course.

"Are you pleased with the way things are?"

Then in March 2009 I turned 21. He did everything the doting boyfriend was supposed to do, bought me gold earrings, didn't laugh at me too much when I got absolutely hammered, came home with me to my parents again. That was when he told me how happy I made him and how much he wanted things to work out with me. Then I went to Spain for a week in April, and when I came back, he just disappeared. When he reappeared he told me he'd seen his ex across the street and realised he was still in love with her, and that was why he was leaving me.

"And so it goes, as the story of a broken heart comes true..."

Within a week we were sleeping together again (I know, rookie mistake on my part!) and acting like we were boyfriend and girlfriend again, telling each other we loved each other, staying the night. I finished my exams and went to Paris with a friend, he drove us back from the airport late at night. One night not long after this a "friend" of his tried to commit suicide and then got admitted to a long term psychiatric unit. Suddenly he seemed to have a lot more free time and a lot less excuses to go away at the weekend. Alarm bells should have rung then.

"Have you learned all the secrets yet?"

By July he hit really hard financial times and had to move back to Warminster for a while, by which time I was really at the end of the tether due to his behaviour. We mutually decided it was best the relationship end there, and I began seeing one of my friends. This was much to his constant annoyance and he was very deliberate in trying to stop us getting together. He even came to see me in Brighton on my friend's birthday, although it didn't go to his plan, as my friends wouldn't let me out of their sight and I wouldn't on a sofa with him. He even tried the getting drunk and texting me the drunken "I love you text". Luckily by this point I was wising up and didn't let it get to me.

"I will listen to your pain, if you listen to me"

Of course the blossoming relationship necessesitated a wonderful trip to the GUM clinic to check all was well (I'm anal - excuse the pun! - about these things). All was not well. Neither me nor David had chlamydia before sleeping together, and I certainly hadn't had unprotected sex with anyone other than him. Cheating bastard. His best friend confirmed this. I googled him. He'd posted on twitter about going to see "Melissa" for the weekend. Told everyone in May about his beautiful redhead girlfriend called "Melissa". I'm not called Melissa, and I'm blonde. He'd spent 6 months lying to me, every time he went away for the weekend it was to sleep with her. He'd had unprotected sex with her and as a result potentially damaged my fertility for life. Needless to say he could have done much worse, after all HIV is eventually a death sentence. So that was how much he cared about and loved me.

"Be near, just for the moment, never go home"

So the love of my life is a man I never knew. One day she'll find out exactly what he did, karma is a bitch like that. Still toying over the idea of telling her myself, but I think that'd just be me being spiteful and would hurt her more than him, and I'm not sinking to his level. Thank goodness I got rid of him when I did!

Soundtrack: Story by Maroon 5

I'm much much happier and settled with my new man, he's a lot different, and I'm falling in love with him much more slowly, but experience is telling me this is probably a good thing. So this story does have a happy ending. I think I'm also going to go with Jimmy Eat World's philosophy in 23:

"I won't always love what I'll never have, I won't always live in my regrets".

Many apologies for length, it was tiny and very disappointing.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:18, 3 replies)
Clocks
(a repost, but still haunts me)

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

The missile was many hundreds of miles away from my car, but because of good visibility in the gloaming, it was possible to see the rocket stage. The missile 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.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:14, 6 replies)
Pink Floyd
Yeah don't tell me I'm not original, I know it.
Learning to fly always lifts me up (shitty pun not intended). I always listen to this after I've been fighting with the mrs. That's getting more and more frequent now.
Comfortably numb, before Aaron Lewis(Staind) fucked it up, was to me the summation of my life. I had a shitty childhood, shitty teenage years, and so far a shitty adult life and I really am numb to it all. I don't like it but there you go.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:12, Reply)
Snap - "The Power".
It's my first clear memory; I would have been 3 or 4 at the time. I found the bridge (or whatever you call it) where the bassline changes and goes duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duuuh, duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duuuh a bit scary, but fascinating too. Similarly, when I was about 12, my dad's copies of Henry Cow's "Beginning: The Long March" and This Heat's "24 Track Loop" seemed at once terrifying and wonderful, and made popular music seem very dull afterwards. In retrospect, it seems likely that these extraordinary pieces unconsciously inspired me to seek out the engaging things not just in music but in all other walks of life. For better or for worse, they did their bit in making me the odd, nearly unclassifiable person I am today.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:12, 2 replies)
I Miss You - Blink 182
I remember having a huge fight with my Mum, mainly over my Dad (they had separated a couple of years before and she was taking it hard and finding it very difficult to understand i didn't share the same views of him) i can't remember what sparked it. It was the summer after i went thru a really dark patch of my life (over a girl, ended up seeing a counsellor), i had just moved into a new house share, home alone. I was upset and listened to this song on repeat for a while, just crying.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:11, Reply)
Over The Rainbow
I think I've told this story before, but a few years ago I met my dad for the first time in New York. He flew from London, I flew from California and we pretty much met in the middle.
The flight over was unventful, apart from getting loads of free booze from teh flight attendants after they'd heard my story (redeye flights are notoriously boring and the flight attendants will talk to anyone who appears to be awake).

Met dad for the first time in 30 years, had a great time with him and my stepmum. All I'd ever wanted in life was to meet my dad, since I was a wee Mentalist, I'd dreamed of him and that he might love me.

3 days later, flying home, emotionally wrought out but utterly ecstatic (the night before he'd kissed me on my forehead and said "I'm proud to have a daughter like you"), same flight crew, more free drinks.

The song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" came on.......and at the line "and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true" I broke down in my seat, and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed because my dream really had come true.

Even now when I hear the song, it takes me back to that night and brings a smile to my face.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:09, 1 reply)
Mis-Shapes by Pulp
Came to me in my teens and taught me the following:

There is music beyond the boyband shite you are currently listening to.

People who are unpopular at school can grow up to be pop stars.

The people who are cool now will not be the ones that win in the end.

Someone out there understands all of this shit you are currently having to deal with.

That song and the album spoke to me at a time when I needed a telling. I used to hum it under my breath when facing the mob. It also opened me up to all the music I was missing and turned me into the musical anorak that I am today.

You can imagine, then, how it felt when Mr Cocker got on his knees to kiss my hand at a gig last year. I've got so much to thank him for.
(, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 22:04, Reply)

This question is now closed.

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