The Soundtrack To My Life

I recently created a Playlist on my iPod of some of the songs that mean most to me. While the list is far from comprehensive, it was, nonetheless, an interesting and cathartic process. I have tried to select songs that reminded me of certain periods in my life. They are songs that, when heard, conjure up memories of people, places and feelings. They are not always good memories, but, memories that have helped to shape me into the man that I am today. The Playlist is as follows:

1. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
2. Fleetwood Mac – Oh Well! (1969)
3. David Bowie – Space Oddity (1969)
4. Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven (1971)
5. Soft Cell – Tainted Love (1981)
6. John Lennon – Imagine (1971)
7. Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight (1981)
8. UB40 – One in Ten (1981)
9. Men at Work – Down Under (1982)
10. Billy Bragg – The World Turned Upside Down (1987)
11. Frankie Goes To Holliwood – Two Tribes (1983)
12. The Jam – Eton Rifles (1979)
13. Marillion – Lavender (1985)
14. U2 – With Or Without You (1987)
15. Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U (1990)
16. Beautiful South – A Little Time (1990)
17. Blur – Parklife (1994)
18. Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger (1995)
19. Urge Overkill – Girl, You’ll Be  a Woman Soon (1994)
20. Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining  (2000)

Other than nursery rhymes, I think that Bohemian Rhapsody was the first song that I ever learnt end-to-end. I am tone deaf and cannot sing to save my life (people still turn round to look at me on the rare occasions that I have to sing in church) but can still be found belting out Bohemian Rhapsody and banging my head in accompaniment while speeding down the M6 .

It was also one of the first videos I saw. Also, it reminds me of my first days as a student at Oxford. On my first weekend I was taken to the cinema by a certain blonde girl that I had been drooling over to watch the film of the live concert. Unfortunately, while easy on the eye, the blonde girl was shallow and ditzy and my lust was over before the concert ended.

Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” shows how much I have been mentally scarred by my upbringing and my poor self-image. It was the lyrics that resonated with me. I felt that the line “I can’t help about the shape I’m in; I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty and my legs are thin.” pretty much summed up how I felt about myself during those difficult teenage years.

Tracks 3) and 4) were amongst the first songs that I recorded manually onto a cassette from my older cousins’ record collection. I was jealous of my cousins. They lived just a few doors up the street but the family was better off than mom and dad and they seemed to have every new toy and gadget going (and they also seemed to break all my new toys), including a record player. Both boys were a couple of years older than me so I was often in awe of them (until they started to wear makeup in the New Romantic era!) and I thought that their choice in music was (note the past tense) cool. As well as an initial taste in music, the cousins also gave me their hand-me-down clothes. This also contributed to my poor self image – see track 2 again.

Soft Cell reminds me of my first nightclub/disco experiences from the age of around 16 on. It is still one of the few tracks that will tempt me to the dance floor without complaint. I have happy memories of snogging and groping strange/mysterious girls in dingy places such as Peppermint Place and Faces in Birmingham. The extended version of the track gave you plenty of time to find a girl……

The assassination of John Lennon in 1980 struck me quite hard, even though I was never really a Beatles fan back then – hence the inclusion of Imagine which topped the chart following his death.

In The Air Tonight (the version without the gorilla) is a piece of music that resonated with me whenever I was romantically depressed. Throughout the 1980s therefore. While I shared Phil Collin’s general malaise, tracks 13 through 16 are girlfriend specific. The good times were good, if brief. But, you broke my heart. You know who you are.

Men at Work reminds me of the fantastic summer before going to university. I was working at Fort Dunlop during the industrial shut down. The work was hard but the camaraderie was great. We had the radio up loud and this was number one at the time.

Tracks 8, 10 and 11 reflect my political awakening which largely coincided with my time as a student at Oxford.

Eton Rifles reminds me of the best friends in the world and student Sweaty Bops in the college beer cellar.

Blur and Oasis mark my transition from London/Nuneaton bachelor to married life in South Manchester.

Urge Overkill reminds me of my wife. When she dances, she dances just like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but twice as sexy.

The Shining? Well, that’s private. But it always takes me to happy place.

I know that my musical choice will not impress many of you. And, I am certain that many of you will interpret my choice in a myriad strange ways. But, I do not care. These are my memories. this is my life. And, if music be the food of love, play on!

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