Songs For My Times.
2003-2005 was a particularly rough time for me - I'd left my job and relocated back to my University town, after a requsite amount of sitting around and getting my head together.

2004-2005 I was carried through this period, when it got particularly black, by Tori Amos' "The Beekeeper."

Otherwise, "Signs" - The Northern Picture Library, "Landmark" / "Letting Go" - The Field Mice can often bring tears to my eyes for historical reasons.

I can't listen to "Everything" - Alanis Morrisette without welling up these days either, because it talks to me about how much I love Mrs.Caescarna.
(caescarna Hell's Roomba, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:46, Reply)

Massive Attack - Teardrop
Has always had an enormous calming effect on me. Likewise, Orbital’s Halcyon (and on and on), otherwise known as ‘the song played near the end of the Mortal Kombat film’, has been good at chilling me out over the years.


Cheers.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:31, 3 replies)

Def Leopard
You know the time of your life when you really find yourself in a seemingly permanent cycle of shagging? The kind of shenanigans where you take a 1am break to put clothes on, get pizza, and decide to take it home again instead of eating out because you're feeling horny again.

... Well, Hannah and I were definitely there. Continuously.
This part of our lives saw Def Leopard being used and abused.

A few of us lived in a house: 56 Birkhouse Lane in Huddersfield to be precise. 4 really good friends, and one runtish boy-racer twat. We'll call him Andrew Forster - For obvious reasons. The Existence of 'Drew is irrelevant, but it's always worth mentioning a punch-worthy DUI fist-magnet when there's an opportunity.

Anyway... Hannah and I regularly tried to drown out our monkey-tastic shagging with Def Leopard... According to housemates we failed. An unexpected success however, was a Pavlovian response: When I hear Def Leopard these days I get the horn and flashbacks of awesomeness.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:29, 3 replies)

For every gut-wrenching, angsty, non-relationship I've had there is an album:
Girl 1: Airbag / How Am I Driving - Radiohead
Girl 2: X / O - Elliot Smith
Girl 3: Cousteau - Cousteau
Girl 4: Black Holes and Revelations - Muse

I have trouble listening to all of them now because they take my mind back to that crazy obsessed place it was inevitably in at one point or another, although I'm completely over the relationship and any issues, because they sound tracked my emotions at the time of each. The only thing that's more evocative is when you catch the smell of a past love or obsession randomly on the breeze.

There is no album for the girl I married. I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:26, 5 replies)

Random?
I flew to Germany a couple of years ago and as we came in for the final approach, wings dipped low over the Dresden skyline, my ipod, set firmly on 'shuffle all songs', decided from the 5,560 tracks available to launch into a stirring rendition of the Dam Busters Theme.

If I'd had speakers I would have broadcast it to the entire plane.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:13, 4 replies)

Dun, De, Dun Dun. Dun-de-Dun....
The moment that I hear the first bars of this tune the hairs on my arms rise and I get goosebumps all over.

I'm transported back to childhood and running through the marshes behind my house playing with the other neighbourhood kids. I'm on a ride at Disneyland. I'm sat in the biggest cinema I've ever been in about to watch the third movie in the series and what is to become my favourite movie ever. Later I'm fumbling under the duvet with my first real girlfriend who had somehow never seen this movie and as I found out, still didn't have any intention to that night.... even as it played in the background. Later still I'm avoiding TV adverts, movie reviews, any possible spoilers and getting very excited in the process because the man in the hat is back.

This music It gets me pumped up, it makes me happy and I can tie it into so many of my favourite memories and ambitions. Above all it makes me want to go out and punch a goddamn Nazi in the face.

It is the main theme tune to Raiders of the Lost Arc and it is of course synonymous with the legend that is Indiana Jones and it is undoubtably the soundtrack to my life.
( Kovacs Slogan free since 2003, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 12:04, 1 reply)

Beaky
Captain Beaky... that's the first music I remember.

"The bravest animals in the land are Captain Beaky and his band
That's Timid Toad, Reckless Rat, Artful Owl and Batty Bat
They march through the woodlands singing songs
That tell how they have righted wrongs"

A song about anthropomorphic personifications of animals, collaborating as a well organised bunch of vigilantes. Nothing sinister there.

Here you go.. www.btinternet.com/~poetspage/beaky/beaky.mp3

Listening to it now makes my grin from ear to ear, and I wonder how many kids these days'd be entertained by sitting around a creaky old record player, listening to this stuff.

Twiggy singing Roland the Rat: dig the Bass Sax!: www.btinternet.com/~poetspage/beaky/roland.mp3

The Beaky albums were awesome www.btinternet.com/~poetspage/beaky/
I suggest you listen to them :)
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:56, 4 replies)

ERG1008 reminded me: I originally entered this for the Schadenfreude question, but I think it's more appropriate here
Watching the Great British Institution that is BBC One, I saw an advert for a documentary. This was a couple of months after Hurricane Katrina had flooded most of New Orleans, and said documentary was going to tell us all about the damage wreaked upon this city by the terrifying winds and rising seas.

The music playing through the background of this trailer?
Led Zeppelin: When the Levee Breaks
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:56, 2 replies)

MY FUCKING FOOTBALL TEAM
To win just once would be enough by the Saw Doctors

(Oh length: the entire distance of the Scottish premier league looking up from the bottom)
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:56, Reply)

Bad Taste Blondie
Christmas 2004.
I was in Germany not far from Dresden.
Local radio station, which mainly played Schlager & 80's songs, were (from what I could understand) going on about the Tsunami in Sri Lanka just after it had happened.
A quick sports bit then they played The Tide is High by Blondie.
My other half & I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!
( ERG1008 is climbing in yo windows & snatchin yo people up, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:48, 6 replies)

Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World" by Antonín Dvorák
2nd movement, "Largo". Popularly known as the theme from the Hovis advert.

Played at both my mum and dad's funerals. Wonderful piece of music.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:48, 1 reply)

Firestarter by the Prodigy
Back when I had nary a care in the world the company I first worked for in Macclesfield traditionally had their Christmas party at 1pm. On this particular year we'd been to Papagallos for an italian and had quaffed copious amounts of Peroni. It was dark outside by now and as far as our drunken selves were concerned it might as well have been midnight as we'd had our fill of beer.

Actually it turned out to be only 5pm and it was late night shopping in the middle of the town centre which was where we found ourselves upon leaving said italian.

"To the Bull's Head!" announced somoeone who realised we still had a whole evening of drinking ahead of us and off we trekked.

It was at this point that Keith 'The Kesterel' decided it would be a good idea to start waving his arms around above his head and start singing 'I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter.' as he weaved his drunken way through the bemused shoppers.

This and the image of my drunken silver haired mother-in-law thrashing around to Firestarter at our wedding reception makes me smile whenever I hear it.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:33, 3 replies)

It Makes No Never Mind
Back in the late 80s, my musical world revolved mainly around comedy goths Fields of the Nephilim - a perfect complement to the bleak brownness of the north of Scotland where I grew up. While I was walking around in my long coat and scarecrow hat and scaring old biddies in libraries, on my radar appeared another band which was particularly popular amongst my friends - it was called Swamptrash. They seemed to be local, playing choice venues such as Inverness's Ice Rink and Carlton Hotel. At 15, I was too young to go and see them, and in any case I never heard what they sounded like, until...

Fast forward to the summer of 1991, I'm sitting in someone's rusty Mini Metro in Whithorn, southwest Scotland - where you can stand on the burnt stumps of The Wicker Man's legs, trivia fans - and the tinny car stereo is playing an equally tinny but very fast psycho bluegrass version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. It's fantastic and it's by Swamptrash. I instantly resolve to buy everything they've released when I get home.

Except I can't bloody find anything, can I? It must be a band that doesn't exist. The only two good record shops in Scotland at this time are One Up in Aberdeen (over 100 miles away) and Fopp in Edinburgh (which may as well be on Mars) - no hope of me going to either of them on my bike. Instead, I went to university in Bournemouth, which was free of both bluegrass and floury goths, but full of crusty prog fans and fey types timidly waiting for the advent of shoegaze. The unlikely twin attack of Slowdive and Ozric Tentacles soon made me forget about Swamptrash.

Until about a year later when in a record shop in Poole, among the bargain bin faves (World of James Last, Engelbert Humperdinck, Mantovani, Bros) I found a vinyl copy of Swamptrash's only album, It Makes No Never Mind. I've never ever seen another copy of it, but any time I get asked for my top 10 albums (argh!) it's straight in there - a great frantic Deliverance swamp stomp of an album. I played it to anyone who'd listen (nearly two people) and eventually bought myself a guitar, a banjo and a mandolin on the back of it. Good times. A friend and I wrote some songs and recorded them on 4-track (eventually some of them made it to Myspace where the same nearly two people listened to them).

15 years later, January 2007, I'm in France looking after my mum who is suffering from bowel cancer and, it turns out, has 7 weeks left. Mostly I'm kept sane by b3ta(!) but feeling pretty shit. 7th January, I get a message on my Myspace page. It's from Harry Horse, children's author, political cartoonist and the singer, banjo player and driving force behind Swamptrash. It says:

I love your music and found it through a recommendation. I was the founder member of Swamptrash and see that you have been kind enough to remember a lost band..Thanks..
The music I make now is very similar to what you do and comes under the name Horseyboots.
The old music is on myspace.com/swamptrashtheband and the new stuff is on it's way.
Please accept my link and let the good times roll...
Happy New Year stranger...
best wishes
Harry Horse



Three days later Harry Horse was dead - he had killed his dog and cat, his wife (who was crippled with MS) and eventually himself.

I don't bother with lyrics and meaning, as a rule, but there's a Swamptrash song (Bone) with lyrics that run thus:


Husband and wife and an empty dish
Down to the water to take a fish
Husband says
Au revoir, ma petite fille, au revoir
I won't be coming back to hold you anymore

( Mighty Nibus who dares gins | @nibus, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:33, 3 replies)

Bruce Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love"
Old bastards amongst you might remember Britannia Music. It was basically the classic mail order sales scam, where you got 3 albums - and this was back in the day of cassettes - for 99p each, with only the obligation to buy 2 at "full price" from them ever again.
In reality, they would send you a tape every month, and if you didn't return it straight away they charged you for it. The typical model of achieving sales through human laziness. Anyway.

This explained how one morning I ended up with an unsolicited copy of "Tunnel of Love" in my letterbox. Back then, I used to read Q magazine, so I knew that the Boss had had marriage problems recently. At the same time, my own marriage was going down the toilet.

I still remember unwrapping the tape on the bus that Saturday, putting the Walkman on and listening to the sound of one man's pain which so well mirrored my own. Then began the song:

"I remember how rough your hand felt on mine on my wedding day
And the tears cried on my shoulder I couldn't turn away
Well so much has happened to me that I don't understand
All I can think of is being five years old following behind you at the
beach tracing your footprints in the sand
Trying to walk like a man".


I realised - I had failed to walk like a man. And despite all his wealth and fame and being nearly twice my age, so had Springsteen. And that whoever we are, so much happens to us that we don't understand, and that we're basically fucked.

No-one was happier than I when Britania went into administration.
( I_Was_Mordred, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:28, 2 replies)

Hitching post no.2

Thanks to insomniac-surfer for jogging another memory.

I fucking loved hitch-hiking when I was young, some days could be really shit, but others were unbelievably good. One of my best day's hitching was when I was heading south through France. I'd just left the UK - left shit A-level results, left shit jobs to make some dosh, left the crap weather, the strikes, the Falklands war - everything. I'd set myself up with four weeks of conservation work in the Pyrenees with an international group of like-minded people.

You know it's going to be a good day's hitching when a youngish bloke in a messy car pulls up, you stick your rucksack in the back, jump in the front and virtually the first thing he says is: can you roll us a joint? I didn't really speak French in those days, but his English was really good - he was a wind-surfing instructor, on his way south for the summer season. The weather was good, the grass was good and this guy put a tape on the car stereo. I'd never heard of Renaud before, and could only understand the odd word. [A couple of years later I'd see him live at the Fête de l'Humanité in Paris and would be able to follow the whole set and join in too]. The grass was taking effect and as the music played - a kind of French Bob Dylan-esque style - he translated for me.

The song was 'Le Deserteur', and it was in the form of a letter from a young man who didn't want to do his national service, to the President of France. Something about it really touched me - the calm, sensible way the guy was reasoning, maybe the fact that there had been talk of conscription for the Falklands that year: "I'll never be a soldier - I don't like the sound of marching boots" and the contrast with the hippie good life he was living "I'm living on a farm, we're raising goats and making jewellery", but the final couple of lines brought a tear to my eye:

"Mr President, to finish my message
I'll simply say that tonight we're having noodles
At the farm - it's nice here - come and eat
We'll smoke and joint and have a chat"

or:

"M. le président pour finir ma bafouille
j’voulais te dire simplement que ce soir on ce fait des nouilles
À la ferme c’est l’panard si tu veux viens bouffer
On fumera un pétard et on pourra causer"

Still makes me all teary when I hear it today, something about the way someone could even write a song about inviting the President round for a chat and a joint was so far away from the Thatcher's Britain I'd left...a million miles away from 'Margaret on the guillotine' somehow.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 11:27, Reply)

My first serious girlfriend
dumped me by phone.

I was down visiting my folks for the weekend, and had bought a CD in town that afternoon.

She phoned me a bit later, and called it all off.

I was heartbroken, and I adjourned to my room for a right good blub. I put on my newly purchased CD - 'Ten' by Pearl Jam (yes I'm that old thanks very much).

The song 'Black' came on (I'll try to stick a link on later when I get home) and I've never felt so fucking miserable in all my life.

Ever since - and that was nearly 18 years ago - that song has meant a huge amount to me. Google it and you'll see what I mean.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:55, 16 replies)

Confession tiem
My parents split up when I was six.

As mum stood in the doorway with her suitcase, and I realised that this really was it and that she wouldn't be living with us any more, Chiquitita by Abba was playing on the radio.

I stood staring at her, both of us crying silently, until my sisters saw me and took me into their room. They both hugged me, and together we formed what would become an oft-commented on incredibly strong, self-sufficient group - unreliant on the world of adults, and formidable - you don't mess with either of my sisters or me without messing with the other two.

If I've been fed whisky, and hear Chiquitita, I can be prone to becoming misty-eyed.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:26, 3 replies)

Foo Fighters - My Hero
When the Foos did their Wembley gig, I got tickets for the Friday and got a call from my mate Lee just before they came onstage. Chatted to him for a bit (he was working in Ireland) about our usual twatty stuff (brussel sprout curry, why beards have ginger in them etc.) then hung up and got on with the concert.

Had a blinding time and got back home thinking "I'm getting on ebay and buying a ticket for tomorrow too!".

Woke up on the Saturday morning feeling great - the plan was get a ticket from ebay, fuck off to Strawberry Fair in Cambridge, then down to London...that was the plan.

Then I got a call from Andy, who told me Lee had died last night - instantly gutted. Seemed we all were, and everyone just turned up in the Tudor, a very morose atmosphere was going on, then the jukebox (on random play) just started playing 'My Hero' - a live version, and the tears started streaming down my face (as they are now). I sat there with Lee's 2 brothers, crying like a baby for my lost friend.

For months, every time I heard that track, my eyes would fill up. Not the soundtrack to my life, but a song that'll always remind me of him.
( snee held his breath since, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:19, 4 replies)

Mogwai
Driving back from the hospital at 2am after the birth of my first daughter, bittersweet moment knowing that it was the end of one era and the start of the next. Mogwai's Rock Action CD on the CD player, I've still not found anything else that would match the mood so well.
(not a thing nothing, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:05, Reply)

Apt – adjective: suited to the purpose or occasion; appropriate
I remember the first time Mrs Sandettie and I orgasmed at the same time. Seeing as I was only 17 and consequently sex for me was over very quickly (not helped by the fact that she was as tight as a mouse's ear), the only theory I have as to why I lasted long enough to manage that feat, was because the same bit of music was looping round and round my mind.

The tune was putting me off my stroke and I thought the best way to get it out of my head was to hum it to myself, quietly though so she didn't hear. Just as I start to hum it under my breath, she started panting and moaning, and I could feel the rhythmic spasms of her pelvic floor muscles as she reached climax. Her panting and moaning was enough to push me over the edge and I didn't so much crash the milk-float, more like I caused a huge pile-up in the dairy car-park, complete with explosions and a radio announcer crying "oh the humanity..".

After the last twitch emptied my knackers completely I realised that I had still been humming the tune. I also realised that I hadn't hummed it under my breath as I thought. I looked down at her and she looked up at me with a puzzled expression. Then she asked me,

"Sandettie, was you just humming the theme from The Equaliser?"
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:04, 2 replies)

Godsmack's "I fucking hate you"......................For the last eight years in the family court
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRI__NQv8Bk&feature=PlayList&p=047261C52672EE2E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=27

My daughter's mother epitomises this song.
For what the experience has done to myself, and even more because she did it to her own daughter.
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 10:01, Reply)

From before I was born so I never knew her
My dad once told me that when he heard his mother had died, the radio was playing "There's Goes My Everything" by Engelbert Humperdinck
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:58, Reply)

Fuck me
I go off to sunny Prague for a few days and fucking captain 6 foot trousers pounces!

What were you lot up to!

Why the shuddering-fuck did you guys not go and lynch the cunt!

I'm going to have to go back and live in Prague, even being subjected to German MTV in a seedy hotel is preferable to living in a country where this man has the power to ruin all music.

(Also hate the nobber for destroying Hallelujah fucking weeks before it was going to be my wedding song)

This QotW has ruined my faith in humanity.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:57, Reply)

oh deary me...
i was a massive Manic Street Preachers fan from about the age of 15 until i grew out of them at about 20. I still have a massive collection of cds, records, posters, magazines, fanzines, t shirts even random japanese Manics related stuff still in the wrappers... and it's all down to the Holy Bible. Just in general rather than a specific song but PCP and Faster are clearly The Ones. Bless. even now, when it comes on my ipod (ooh er) i'm instantly transported back to being young and angry and shouting lyrics out of car windows at pedestrians. good times!

these days i'm more grown up and listen to punktry and ska punk and all the other sub genres and cross overs in between punk/random. my one song that reminds me of an ex (since all of the stories so far seem to be about old flames) has the immortal lyrics "when they come for me i'll be sitting at my desk with a gun in my hand wearing a bulletproof vest singing my, my, my how the time does fly when you know you're gonna die by the end of the night"

how romantic!! makes my heart bleed!!
(PrincessTinkle is charlie brooker's secret wife, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:57, 2 replies)

I lost my
virginity to an older woman to the tune of UB40's Rat in mi Kitchen

Thereafter, for the rest of our torrid three month relationship My penis was known as "The Rat" and her mimsey was "The Kitchen"
.
( NobbyNobody 21 years a b3tan, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:47, 8 replies)

Love the song, but brings back bad memories
When I was at school I had a mega crush on a girl in my year. By about the age of 14/15 we had become good friends and hung around in a group of about 5 people.

I'd asked her out a couple of times and been shot down with the old "We're just such good friends and I wouldn't want that ruined if we broke" bollocks.

Back to the story, our little group had planned a trip to the cinema together. I can't for the life of me remember what movie was showing and I probably didn't care much then either. All I knew was that it would be the perfect place to make a move once again (very perseverant...or stupid).

Fast forward to the cinema, we're sat in our seats and as luck would have it I'm sat next to her (I say luck, I near enough punched one of my female friends in the face to get her seat).

As the movie plays I begin to get more and more nervous, I haven't thought this through; HOW do I make a move? What do I do? FUCK! At this point, my good friend N decides to grab my hand and put it on the girl's leg (oh the hilarity) which I quickly move away and give N a swift smack.

Then it starts to dawn on me that maybe THAT'S not such a bad idea! Brilliant in fact. So gradually my hand makes its way to her knee (I cringe just thinking about it). She looks horrified, but I keep my hand there, god knows why it just seemed like the best thing to do, as if she would eventually get used to it.

After about 10 minutes (that's right!) I move my hand and we watch the rest of the film, with her clearly very pissed off. She ignores me as we all head to the bus stop and keeps it up all the way home.

Breakout by Foo Fighters was always one of my favourite songs and whilst it's not the "angriest" song in the world, it seemed perfectly suitable for the situation. I think I wore out about 10 AA batteries over the following week as I replayed that song over an over on my CD Player.

It still remains one of my favourite songs of all times, but I always look back on that day and think "what an utter fucktard!"
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:46, Reply)

In a small village 200km East of Manaus in the Amazon.
You may find a local guide with a rudimentary knowledge of both English and shipping terms, used while paddling his canoe. As well as hearty cries of "Port", "Starboard" and "Full Steam Ahead!", he also does a marvellous rendition of the chorus of "Frigging in the Rigging", which as you all know, is our national canoeing song.
(SSSSS, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:28, Reply)

Utterly cliche, but utterly gut wrenching at the time.
As a teenager, I never had much luck with girls, and consequently, was rather inexperienced when it came to relationships.

As soon as I went to university, I found out that I could actually pull women, and with this new-found knowledge, I did the sensible thing and clung hard to the second girl that came along who (unbelievably!) was susceptible to my charms.

This was love. This was burning desire, a sort of uncontrollable, inexplicable, emotional abandon. This was selfish sexuality and desperate selflessness.

This was not quite what girl #2 had been anticipating. But we stayed together. We even moved into the same house after leaving halls of residence at the end of the first college year.

It could not last. This much she knew. We broke up. We got back together again. The cycle repeated itself a few times more, until even I could not bear the pain of the torn and restitched relationship.

We fought once more. We decided to break up. She went for a walk. I put my headphones on. It was 1997 and Radiohead had just released 'OK Computer'.

Twenty minutes later she walked back into the house, into our bedroom. She walked up to the desk where I was sitting, and asked what I was listening to. I pulled the jack lead out of the socket, and 'Exit Music (For a Film)' thundered into its crescendo.

She said "Is this for my benefit?"

I just clung to her and cried.
(theremin put the lotion in the basket on, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:03, 1 reply)

what i like about you- the Romantics
shouting this song at the tops of our voices on road trips with the best girl in the world! Who understands me better than any one else!

What I like about you, you hold me tight
Tell me I'm the only one, wanna come over tonight, yeah
You're whispering in my ear
Tell me all the things that I wanna to hear, 'cause that's true
That's what I like about you
What I like about you, you really know how to dance
When you go up, down, jump around, think about true romance, yeah
You're whispering in my ear
Tell me all the things that I wanna to hear, 'cause that's true
That's what I like about you
Wahh!
Hey!
What I like about you, you keep me warm at night
Never wanna' let you go, know you make me feel alright, yeah
You're whispering in my ear
Tell me all the things that I wanna to hear, 'cause that's true
That's what I like about you

.....but before i met her the top song was "what do i get" by the Buzzcocks!! Thanks babe!
(kurious oranj, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:00, Reply)

I know this will split opinion.
My eleventh birthday was a transitional time for my relationship with music as I was just waking up to the wonderful sounds some people could make. After I'd opened all my presents in the morning and returned from school that afternoon, my parent's perpetually-mashed friend Dodgy Trev came round and handed me a small gift. Under the wrapping were two copied cassette tapes, marked with his cursive scrawl 'Five Star' and 'Paul Simon'.
I remember being quite enamoured with Five Star, but it was Paul Simon's Graceland album which really caught my attention and held it hostage. I'd enjoyed the video for 'Call Me Al' and the song got stuck in my head, but the album brought so many other pleasures to my ears. From a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby, who am I to blow against the wind? I've seen them all and man, they're all the same, moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake, she makes the sign of the teaspoon he makes the sign of the wave - I wanted to be the poor boy who changed clothes and put on aftershave to impress the rich girl with diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
Everything about the album captivated me, from the drums, percussion and guitars to the beautifully harmonic African singing, the quirky poetic lyrics and the images Paul Simon painted in my mind through his descriptions. I knew then and still know now every lyric, guitar note, drum beat and harmony on the album. It brings me pleasure to this day and I listen to it a few times a year, each time gaining that nostalgia which was created back in 1986.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 8:59, 18 replies)