Big Songs & Music in Your Life

[Mr.E]

Random topic maybe, but I have the radio on at work, and an add came on featuring Fran Healy from the band Travis, talking about how music can take you a particular moment in your life: falling in love, going to school, marriage, divorce, new life, death and so on.

 

With that in mind, thought I'd bring that idea on here and see if anybody has a particular song that takes them back to any sort of place; good or bad, great song or terrible, and what that is?

 

I'll have a think for now, but one that springs to mind right now is the Soundgarden song "Black Hole Sun", which will forever remind me of my dad (who's still with us, just reminds me of good times as a teenager) as for some unknown reason, he thinks Chris Cornell is English, and he sings the chorus in a faux English rocker accent, hah!

[WWFChilli]

Shakespeare Sister - Stay. Reminds me of being very young, just discovering what I liked and early memories. Also similar to Annie Lennox's 'Why' video, being fascinated as a 5 year old by the promo video.

 

Our Velocity - Maximo Park. Being 20/21, the indie boom, going to WA1 and Friars Court in Warrington. The ability to drink without awful hangovers.

[Gus Mears]

More Than This by Roxy Music. Great shagging song.

[Krytie 2X4B 523P]

Shakespeare Sister - Stay. Reminds me of being very young, just discovering what I liked and early memories.

For the same reasons it's Let Loose Crazy For You. Roxette It Must Have Been Love also takes me back

[John Matrix]

First song that springs to mind is Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald.

 

Specifically when listened to in conjunction with watching Running Scared. I fell in love with that song the moment I heard it to the point my VHS is noticably tired when it gets to that part of the movie.

 

At the time, as a teenager obsessed with the idea of visiting America, I loved everything it represented, with the Hines and Crystal montage only serving to reinforce my vision of what a holiday in Florida would be like. Today when o hear that song, I'm instantly taken back to simpler times. A 20 something would regularly spend nights sleeping in the clothes id worn all day on friends floors because we were having too much fun to go home, seeing the world through my inexplicable ability to run with with a ball under my arm, no bills, no responsibilities, no consequences to my actions. Truly care free, confident and ambitious - almost the polar opposite of the guy I stare at in the mirror these days.

 

I was so desperate to listen to that song back then, that at 11pm one night I suggested we all bundle in a friends car and head to a pub on the complete opposite side of town because I'd been there six months previous and heard them playing it. We did, and they did, and although I could barely hear it over Saturday night trade, it was worth every second.

 

So yeah, you could say this song has a place in my heart for sure.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im74LVYF3Tk- Enjoy.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

My parents were really into music, they laid a great foundation for me as a music fan and there was always cool shit playing when I was a kid so there's loads of stuff they liked that means the world to me and reminds me of easier, happier times.

 

The song that has stuck with me most without a strong association to someone else however is You Could be Mine by Guns N' Roses.

 

Guns n' Roses were the first band I chose to get into by myself when I was eight or nine and I fucking loved them. Listening to my old man's Captain Beefheart, The Doors and Frank Zappa records was cool but here was a current band that were all mine and that means a lot to kids for some reason. I absolutely rinsed Appetite for Destruction, I used to listen to it on my Walkman constantly.

 

The only thing I loved as much as Guns N' Roses was the Terminator -my big brother had recently started showing me Robocop, Terminator, The Thing, Alien/s, Predator and loads of other cool films I was too young to see. The Terminator changed my life, I'd never seen anything so cool and Arnie was my hero immediately.

 

Imagine my excitement when 1991 came round, I was 10 and it turned out there was going to be a sequel to the Terminator, I was so excited- then I discovered Guns N' Roses were doing the song for it in the way big bands used to do big songs for big movies - my two favourite things in the world were coming together! I couldn't believe it, then I heard the song and it was the fucking best song I'd ever heard! I listened to my cassette single of You Could be Mine dozens of times a day (and everyone knows how awesome Terminator 2 turned out to be as well).

 

I still love Guns N' Roses, Terminator and Arnie even though all three have turned into bloated parodies of themselves but I'll never forget the way they all came together when I was 10. I still consider You Could be Mine my favourite song ever and whenever I listen to it (which is regularly) it takes me right back to that age where I was starting to become my own person.

[Scott Malbranque]

Caffeine by Faith No More is probably my favourite song of all time and has been since the day Angel Dust was released.

Closely followed by pretty much the whole of said album (except Smaller and Smaller, which is just a terrible piece of music) and the whole of Mr.Bungles eponymous debut.

Pretty much anything Mike Patton has ever released, I’ve fallen in love with.

I would also put Solar Stones Orange Theme Remix, Lizard by Mauro Picotto, the Loved Up Soundtrack and the whole of the Prodigys Jilted Generation album up there as they remind me of just wonderful, wonderful times of social boundary breaking.

Honorable mentions to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Herbie Hancocks Headhunters, Charlie Parker Jam Sessions, Machine Heads Burn My Eyes album, the Event Horizon score, Liberty X’s Being Nobody, Ben Allisons Riding the Nuclear Tiger and Deftones’ Around The Fur.

Ah I could go on for fucking days here!!!

[Grecian]

Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus got me through my first nasty break-up.

 

World In Motion, for the summer of 1990, being in school, England going to the semi-finals, and being the only semi-Villa fan in my school when David Platt scored against Belgium. The only school day when I felt like a God, with my Villa stationery, Villa back-pack and Villa PE shorts (bless my dad for trying to make me a Villa fan, or get my head kicked in, I'm not sure which he was going for).

 

And speaking of my Dad, anything by Alice Cooper will always make me think of him.

[Chest Rockwell]

My parents were really into music, they laid a great foundation for me as a music fan and there was always cool shit playing when I was a kid so there's loads of stuff they liked that means the world to me and reminds me of easier, happier times.

 

The song that has stuck with me most without a strong association to someone else however is You Could be Mine by Guns N' Roses.

 

Guns n' Roses were the first band I chose to get into by myself when I was eight or nine and I fucking loved them. Listening to my old man's Captain Beefheart, The Doors and Frank Zappa records was cool but here was a current band that were all mine and that means a lot to kids for some reason. I absolutely rinsed Appetite for Destruction, I used to listen to it on my Walkman constantly.

 

The only thing I loved as much as Guns N' Roses was the Terminator -my big brother had recently started showing me Robocop, Terminator, The Thing, Alien/s, Predator and loads of other cool films I was too young to see. The Terminator changed my life, I'd never seen anything so cool and Arnie was my hero immediately.

 

Imagine my excitement when 1991 came round, I was 10 and it turned out there was going to be a sequel to the Terminator, I was so excited- then I discovered Guns N' Roses were doing the song for it in the way big bands used to do big songs for big movies - my two favourite things in the world were coming together! I couldn't believe it, then I heard the song and it was the fucking best song I'd ever heard! I listened to my cassette single of You Could be Mine dozens of times a day (and everyone knows how awesome Terminator 2 turned out to be as well).

 

I still love Guns N' Roses, Terminator and Arnie even though all three have turned into bloated parodies of themselves but I'll never forget the way they all came together when I was 10. I still consider You Could be Mine my favourite song ever and whenever I listen to it (which is regularly) it takes me right back to that age where I was starting to become my own person.

I had a similar experience in that I was already hugely into Arnie because my bro had showed me stuff like Conan and Terminator. And then T2 came out, and I saw the You Could be Mine video on MTV so I thought it was cool as shit because it had Arnie in it. Arnie got me into Guns n Roses - I bought Use Your Illusion 2 because for some reason it was only slightly more expensive than just the single of You Could be Mine (I think it was some kind of special edition). That was the second album I ever bought, and the first thing I ever bought on cd.

[EdgarTheSlouch]

Crash Test Dummies Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmm always bring memories of my first crush coming back.

[Gus Mears]

Without trying to derail this into negative memories, I have some songs I can't listen to due to them conjuring up memories of shit times. I had a really bad panic attack once when listening to, of all fucking things, Rainbow High from the musical Evita. I feel physically sick on the rare occasions I hear that and not just because it's rubbish.

 

I specifically remember listening to Jimmi Hendrix for the first time when I was about 12 and my cock pretty much exploding when I heard the opening guitar riff to Purple Haze. There are very few better feelings than that tingle on the back of your neck when that great music hits you. I get much the same feeling from early Muse albums (before they went careering up there own arse) as they were the first band I really got into that actually still existed in any meaningful capacity. Every time I hear anything of Absolution I'm back in Wembley Arena asking Mum to buy me a T-shirt that wouldn't fit.

[The Gaffer]

I could go on all day with this because I'm a hyperemotional bollocks with literally everything so I'll just pick a few choice cuts:

 

 

The Wonder Stuff - Here Comes Everyone.

This is the first song I developed a love affair with as a very young kid, as opposed to just humming along with stuff because it had been ingrained into me from the radio or my dad playing his VHS tapes he recorded from VH1. During summer holidays I'd go to my nans every morning when my parents both worked and my cool young aunt still lived there. She was into cool music and in my nans 'music room' in amongst literally hundreds of copy tapes of Nat King Cole, Irish ditties etc there was her stuff. Cure, Cult, Pixies and The Wonder Stuff.

 

I think from about the age of 6 I knew every word of every song from Hup! and Never Loved Elvis - two tremendous albums despite their greebo reputation as the dopes who done Dizzy with Vic & Bob. Best artefact of all though was a rockumentary called Welcome To The Cheapseats that fascinated me as a youngster. The interspersal of live footage, videos and the band hanging out looking naff made me want to be a rock star. The climax of the video tape being a live version of Here Comes Everyone from the Feile festival in Tipperary in 1991.

 

The song does weird things to me. It's probably not special to anybody else but to my mind it's still one of the best tunes ever. It took me years to rediscover it again - late teens - and when I did nothing had changed. It was still amazing.

 

Aztec Camera - Somewhere In My Heart

Dad Music. Rousing song by a crap band. I just remember it playing over and over in the car when we used to visit my mum when she was ill in hospital and I didn't really understand what was going on. So the sound of it still has this bittersweet weight of the world effect on me. Mums not ill not, don't worry.

 

New Order - Regret

Same situation as above. The two songs were always played in tandem on those drives to the hospital. Took me years after to get into New Order properly. Republic is a hole of an album, though.

 

Depeche Mode - Home

Depeche are my favourite band. They were a killer thing to get into as a token affected teen who took idyllic fascination in the aesthetic of the 1980s. From about Black Celebration on every album was excellent and different sounding up until the end of the 90s. A hell of a run of records, real depth of discogrpahy stuff that belts you with rewards if you're an album track fan. They're also the finest gift my mum's ever given me and we've been to see them as a family deal three times now, once in Stade De France. They're a monster in Europe. It's completely surreal.

 

Home was my early favourite track from them. It's an amazing string arrangement set over Tim Simenon's trip hoppy production from the awesome Ultra album. A live version done with just piano they've been doing for a few years is even better. The lyrics I guess work as a simple, perfect analogy for feeling a bit of a cast away - mental states for me rather than anywhere physical - and 'coming home' to who you really are and what's important. Et cetera, et cetera.

 

Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

Radiohead became my second favourite band ever in the space of about a week when I randomly decided to get into them and play this video at 5 in the morning, coming down from mushrooms. So that should give you an idea of why it's here, the dissociative floaty float of a trip ending coinciding perfectly with the ghosty background keys and dreamy, completely nonsense video to the song.

 

After the song I went downstairs and my friend was having a bad whacker because Ricky Hatton was voted off Celebrity Weakest Link and he became convinced Hatton had now left the world. Then none of us would go in to the kitchen to grab food or water because the phrase 'it's spider season, baby' became stuck in our heads. Other peoples drug stories.

 

Joy Division - Atmosphere

The one I listened to on repeat when I was a pisshead going through my first proper love and failing film production. To this day I only break it out once or twice a year for Serious Shit time, usually when something doesn't work out and I'm drunk and alone at a stupid hour. It scares me. It's like a wounded animal in the corner of the room you approach with caution and I'm convinced if I get too near the song will lose it's terrible hold over me and as haunting as it genuinly is I don't want that to happen.

 

 

So those are the main ones. I could have given about a dozen cool moments from when I first started developing my own music personality when I was 12 but I can't be arsed doing paragraphs on HIM and Slipknot. Or when I ditched all that mosher shit and decided to only watch MTV2 and be 'smart' about my music for awhile when I was 14. But Arcade Fire vanished up their own arseholes right afer Funeral and The Bravery never really happened.

 

I have a huge reservoir of brilliant 80s tunes my parents gave me but you get the idea. Energy Flash, Mentasm and PVD's remix of Love Stimulation all became religious experience to me when I was stretched out rubbing my legs feeling like every breath was menthol.

[Egg Shen]

chuck me in the You Could Be Mine club, i already liked GnR and owned Appetite for Destruction at a real young age on cassette (to this day im not actually sure how i had it, my parents certaily wern't fans), so a You Could Be Mine/Terminator combo was a no brainer. The song specifically reminds me of roller disco's, it takes me right back. Me and a few mates would request it every week (the roller disco DJ sadly passed away a month or so ago) and we'd skate like maniacs when it came on, all thoughts on self-preservation went down the shitter, we just went nuts. Great memories.

[Scott Malbranque]

Appetite for Destruction is an incredible album. Even today, the fucking grooves in it are absolutely world class.

Anything Goes, Rocket Queen and It's So Easy...just, wow!

[Mr.E]

My parents are fairly young (I'm 28 now, and my parents are 46), so when I was a kid I was getting all the "in" music of th 90's and combined with stuff like Queen from my uncle, Bon Jovi from my mum, and pretty much everything else from my dad, it was awesome.

 

Generic 90's dance songs like No Limit, Rhythm is a Dancer and so on, remind me of Christmas Disco's I used to go to when I was a wee nipper. I went through what was left of my Dad's CD collection when I was a teenager and grabbed Nevermind and Nirvana : Unplugged off him, which I thought was a real treat at the time.

 

I still listen to "new" music, but I find myself still filling up my phone with 90's/00's Rock which is what I mainly grew up on.