Big Songs & Music in Your Life

[handspants]

Bet no one can beat first kiss (proper one with tongues and stuff) to Aqua - Dr Jones

Then there's the first song I can remember having sex to which was Coheed and Cambria - A Favor House Atlantic

And then being in a tent in France and listening to Weezer - El Scorchio on repeat when a girl had broken up with me.

Finally, the whole of Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight always gives me a kick in the nuts when I listen to it due to a different breakup, but I love it, so can't just not listen to it.  Bitch.

Can't believe I forgot this one but Frank Turner - You Are My Sunshine hits hard, as my Gran used to sing it to me when I was little, and she passed away this year..

[The Gaffer]

The one that comes to mind is, predictably, The Beatles.

 

I used to go to visit my Nan every Saturday with my Mum. My Nan had terrible Athritis and some weeks she was mobile, others she wasn't. It was the toss of coin each week as to whether she could leave the house or not; if she could we'd take her to Tuebrook market but if not, my Mum would go on her own and I'd stay in the house with my Nan. One particular week in what I *think* was 1989, she wasn't too good so I stopped back with her whilst my Mum went to buy cheap pegs or something.

 

A ten year old and a seventy year old don't really have much to talk about so after about an hour of 'how's school?' and 'how did you get on at the bingo the other week?', the conversation was dry. All of a sudden, once we realised the telly was shite, she said she was going to put some music on. I wasn't arsed. I was ten. Anyway, she asked me to put a cassette of Help! in the tape player. It hadn't been rewound so as soon as I pressed the massive play button (with two hands), the intro to Ticket to Ride came on. It knocked me off my foot cushion and immediately I was hooked. She told me to take the tape home and I must've played it five times a day for weeks.

 

A few years later she told me she'd never forget my face when it first came on and I remember it like it was yesterday; the feeling it gave me is indescribable. I still have that cassette and within a couple of years I'd used my pocket money to buy the rest of the albums and not long after I did the same for the CDs.

 

To this day, I thank my Nan for introducing me to The Beatles and every time I hear Ticket to Ride I get goosebumps and see Betty's fantastic smile just watching me taking it in.

All the love I can summon for this. 

 

I could nominate the entirety of Abbey Road, but if we were to muddy those waters with albums I'd shove Master Of Reality on there too. Not a week goes by I don't listen to either of those two albums and discern something close to the only concept of the transient I'll probably die knowing.

 

Brilliant post. 

[PowerButchi]

Young Childhood - As an early adopter of satellite TV in 1990 or so, I'd be bombarded on MTV by (gasp!) Music Videos. Eclectic ones too. The three that really stand out are Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil, Birdhouse in your Soul by They Might Be Giants, 57 Channels and Nothing On by Bruce Springsteen, and, fucking oddly, Crucified by Army of Lovers (The only song more manly and hetero than Life at the Outpost by the Skatt Bros).

 

Teenage Years - We'll gloss over the Spice Girls Because My Newly Pubic Cock Wanted To Fuck Them Years and skip straight into listening to R.E.M. and Radiohead and Metallica non stop.

 

As I got older, I really got an affinity with To Build A Home by the Cinematic Orchestra and Man of the Hour by Pearl Jam as they were my best friend Karl's favourite songs, and he sadly took his own life 5 years ago, and they tend to make me blub like a bairn. Top man.

[Ladiesman345]

Eternal Flame by the Bangles. One of my first memories is my Mother listening to this whilst ironing, and whenever I hear it now it gives me an almost dream like feeling, transporting me back to 1990ish. It almost makes me want to burst into tears. I don't know why though. Time passing so quickly and life being so short I guess. It's a bizarre one. A great tune also, it still stands up. That guitar sound! Wow.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Any of ELO's hits - we went on a family vacation to the south of France when I was ten, and ELOs greatest hits is the only tape we took with us. Six days of driving there and back, and any driving we did whilst down there, I don't know how many play throughs. No wonder it reminds me of sun and croque Madames.

[ColinBollocks]

Automatic For The People instantly reminds me of being a young lad as my Dad played it to death. Lots of late 80s/mid 90s songs remind me of certain nothing moments when I was young. Like Stupid Girl by Garbage reminds me of running riot in the front garden while my Mum and Dad were talking to their pals during the summer, or Big Time Sensuality by Bjork brings back memories of sitting in the neighbours living room, Stars by Simply Red = Special K.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Most Simply Red songs make me feel like I'm in a K-Hole

[Otto Dem Wanz]

Cool topic idea, I actually make dedicated Spotify playlists for certain periods of my life which made composing this a lot easier!

 

The earliest time a song elicits memories of a life event was when I was 7 and an uncle of mine passed away. He was a very keen guitar player and after sorting through his items after the funeral it was decided that my Mum would take his record collection and my sister would iherit his guitar. Pink Floyd's The Wall and Bob Dylan's Blowing in the wind were favourites of his and were played constantly around this time, they remind me of both the family grief and my uncle himself. I know my Mum gets emotional about her brother when she hears the Dylan song, so its hard for me not to too.

 

Moving on, my secondary school years were a mishmash of shit R & B, chart stuff and UK grime encompassing my first ever concert (Kanye West at the o2 in 2007). I cringe looking back, particularly with the grime stuff but do remember those days fondly, I'm just glad I didn't 'go studio with mandem' and commit my 'bars' to a digital recording like some people I know did.

 

Into sixth form and with broadband allowing me to delve into more music, I really got into old-school hip hop like Biggie, Tupac, Wu-Tang, Outkast and the like. In hindsight there are certain lyrics I now find hard to listen to, misogynistic and overtly-sexual shite makes me embarassed to say I ever liked Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg, but I still give 2001 a play on occasion.

 

On to the uni years now, and Example reminds me of my first girlfriend, he was pretty big in the charts around 2010 and most of the SU DJ's had Kickstarts and Changed the way you kissed me on their playlists when we would just get off with each other ignoring our friends. Two years later when she dumped my arse Dry your eyes by The Streets was the soundtrack to my tears.

 

Mi Mujer by Nicolas Jaar (by far my most pretentious choice you'll read here) is my favorite song that reminds me of my year abroad in Spain, where I was subsumed in electronic music thanks to Berlin and Barcelona based friends. I doubt I'll ever be as edgy again.

[Sergio Mendacious]

Old school hip hop? Cheers, now I feel older than God

[Otto Dem Wanz]

Sorry Bill, I was mad keen on Eric B and Rakim and EPMD too which probably fits the 'old school' description better than the aforementioned

[SuperBacon]

Sorry Bill, I was mad keen on Eric B and Rakim and EPMD too which probably fits the 'old school' description better than the aforementioned

That's better ffs

[Surf Digby]

Lots of songs have memories attached to them or particular significances for me. Hardly surprising as I'm a music obsessive, but here's a few.

 

Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower.

Being a heavy metal teenager, I didn't "get" Jimi for a while. This song is a corker though, and it took me listening to it, alone in a dark room to hear properly how great it was. I was at a party at Matt D's house and it was winding down. Half the people had fucked off home, and what was left was either comatose or discussing the existentialist subtext of Jurassic Park. I was still wide awake for whatever reason and so locked myself in his bedroom and put a random tape in the stereo.

 

Mike Oldfield - Platinum

For 30+ years I had no idea what this was called. My Dad had a recording of it - from vinyl - and all he'd written on the cassette was "Side A". As the cassette label already showed which was side A and side B, this made little sense, but because of this, I only knew it as "Agfa Super 60".

I think the first time I heard this was my Dad trying out his new tape deck. We still lived at Rainworth, so I would have only been 3 or 4 years old. The tape deck itself was pretty amazing looking. I can't whether or not he had a tape deck before, but the amplifier and radio tuner were proper 70s style. Wooden casing, lots of knobs and chunky spring loaded buttons. From that, he upgraded to this futuristic beast:

 

 

and accompanying it was this music that sounded like nothing that was on TV or the radio, or anything else my parents listened to. It was like the sound effects from Doctor Who or Blakes 7 turned into music.

 

Zoe - Sunshine on a Rainy Day

15 years old. School disco. Moody tart. What would now be described as an emo moment. 'nuff said.

 

Blondie - Heart of Glass

This was probably the only recorded music I can remember my Grandad buying, everything else would have been from when I was very young or before I was born. Considering he didn't listen to much music, he always had a serious stereo to play it on. In the early 80s, he upgraded to a huge Sony separates system, but before that had this wonderful thing:

 

 

He said that he'd bought this single for us Grandkids as one of us had apparently said we'd like it, so when we went to visit and he put it on, it was that extra bit special. I've no idea where it went, because when he got the Sony, this went up into the attic and I used to listen to my Mum's old 45s on it, and Heart of Glass wasn't in there.

[bAzTNM#1]

Have to say anything Elvis Presley here. Reminds me of my late dad and granddad. What a fucking handsome man Elvis was.

 

All the songs from the film "Jazz Singer" with Neil Diamond in it for the same reason. So it's "America", "Love on the Rocks", etc.

[air_raid]

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 dearly want to make a contribution to this thread but I'll make it tomorrow when I'm less sleepy because I'll need time to think first, about trying to make it concise enough to be worth reading. Music is massive to me and every time in my life or important person in my life has a song or songs that I make a connection, so it will need a bit of work to reign myself in to post something that isn't tl;dr.

 

Just to give a small example, I do a thing on FriendFace where I count down to Christmas by posting "51 Days Of (air raid)" which is a countdown of songs with big sentimental attachment for me. This year will be the fourth year I do it and I've already got 70 odd jotted down for a shortlist, even after being 153 down from my "biggest hitters" in previous years.

 

I've got largely shit taste, mind, but whatever.

[kidkris]

This thread is amazing man.

Growing up music was always such a huge huge huge part of my life, I always got the new now thats what i call music tapes/cd's

 

Then i was really into indy music and was introduced by my brother to the kooks, the zutons, arctic monkeys ext 

 

Then i got into rock/metal/deathcore music and my life was changed and completed all at once. 

I literally listen to all genres of music so i have different bands for my every changing moods.