In Summer 2023, I welcomed subscribers to my mailing list by asking them “what’s a favourite song of yours and what are you reminded of when you hear it?”. Here’s a compilation of the responses I received.
Alan Stevenson: “My favourite song is The Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon. It was originally released in late 1985, when I was 14, and got precisely nowhere (not 1991, when it did well in the charts, that was a re-release).
There were a lot of acts that had a Celtic rock vibe at the time: U2, The Alarm, Simple Minds, The Waterboys, Aztec Camera, Big Country, and this was during the final stages of the The Waterboys “Big Music” phase, before they pivoted to a very Irish folksy sound. And screw the haters, but at the time U2 in particular absolutely fucking owned. And The Waterboys weren’t too far off IMHO.
The album the song is from, This is the Sea remains one of my favourite albums as well.
The song compares how ‘you’ and ‘I’ see things differently, with the ‘you’ always seeing the more optimistic, bigger or grander side of things. At the time I was working hard on overcoming shyness, particularly around girls (I was at a boys’ school, but we had lessons with the local girls’ school) and I guess I felt a lot of what the song was saying applied directly to me and me only, as an angsty teen.
I will always remember it on in the background on someone’s radio as a group of us were messing around in a Portakabin during the buildup to Christmas, then picking it up in Sherborne Woollies (paid for, not nicked), taking it home during the school holidays and playing it to death.
Until recently I’ve had it as one of the songs to play at my funeral, but have now dropped it for Fatman Scoop’s Be Faithful because I think it would be more amusing for my kids.”
Jenni Wilkinson: “Whilst I hope my taste in music has improved since my first ever record purchase, the reality is my choices these days are eclectic, where I like an album, but maybe not everything the artist has ever done.
I do seem to prefer female singers, possibly even angry female singers, a particular favourite is Alanis Morissette – Ironic.
I play it sometimes when life feels like it is trying to get the better of you, as a reminder that sometimes it can feel like it’s not working out but it can change in a flash and all come good, that and it’s just a great song.
It’s also one of the few where I don’t sing completely different lyrics to the ones the artist intended, perhaps another theme?
‘Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you. When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right, and life has a funny way of helping you out when, you think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up in your face.’”
Rich Stevens: “A song that always sparks a particular memory is Burnin’ by Daft Punk. Back in my Cardiff Uni days me and my friends used to always put this on the jukebox in the union bar several times a night just to watch everyone’s reaction! It was 6913 on the jukebox.”
Clive Toms: “Gloria Jones – Bring On The Love, a record released in 1977, it was said to be about Marc Bolan who was Gloria’s boyfriend. Gloria was driving the car when Marc was killed, his side of the car took the most impact. Some of Bolan’s fans have never forgiven Gloria.
I met her in Blackpool at a Soul night in the Tower Ballroom and sat and spoke with her about Bring On The Love and asked her why she thought it was not a massive hit. She tactfully said the record company just didn’t push it hard enough. My thoughts were they knew in 1977 that she had a lot of negative press and they wanted a lower profile for her.
I had her sign a sketched picture of herself to Tracey who didn’t travel up to Blackpool with me. Gloria currently lives in Sierra Leone where she is building the Marc Bolan music and film school to which l made a donation. The record came out the year l left school when l was really getting into soul music. I have it on a LP. “
Clive Toms: “Love Affair – Bringing On Back The Good Times. When l hear this song and watch this video, which features London red buses, it just takes me back in time to when life seemed to be just so uncomplicated. It reminds of my time staying up in London and the good nights out l had down the West End.
As the traffic goes through Piccadilly Circus l can see where the Cockney Tavern pub used to be and where l spent many a full on Cockney knees up in that pub on New Years Eve. l sometimes used to take an old lorry up to London and en route had to drive around Trafalgar Square just like the ones are doing in the video. You can see them having to ease around bends as we did not have power steering in the lorries back then. Read the YouTube comments on the video and you’ll be hearing the same sort of words as mine from many others too.”
Catherine Adams: “A real coming of age song for me was Opus – Live Is Life, which was out in 1984 but seemed to stay popular and well played in the circles I was in for a while.
I had just started being more independent and discovered the delights of spending long lazy summer days in Bournemouth Gardens with big groups of friends, often including international students coming to study in the town for the summer.
There would always be a radio, a stereo or a guitar and that song was played a lot – great for singalongs too. I loved talking to people from different countries and making friends, some came back every year and many also wrote letters and became penpals.
I couldn’t wait for the summer in Bournemouth each year, and each one just got better and better, staying out later, extending the times going to Glasshoppers, Bla Bla’s and Alcatraz night clubs, very underaged, with my international friends.”
Fiona Brennan: “Favourite song… is there a more difficult question? While I’d love to put something obscure to make me look like I have high music intelligence, I’m going to say Pennywise’s version of Stand By Me. It was meant to be the first dance at our wedding but my husband thought it might offend his Nan. So we had to do it later when everyone was too drunk to notice.”
Christopher Hyde: “Slightly weird one. A song I really like is Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, but somehow it’s become bound up with an odd memory.
My mum used to take me to Purbeck Sports Centre as a kid, to do archery and things like that. I would often have to wait for her to pick me up afterwards, and during that time I would go through all the empty lockers to see if anyone had forgotten to take their pound when they retrieved their stuff.
When I hear the song, it reminds me not so much of that process, but of the elation I felt when I would find that occasional quid. I was a strange and frugal child who saved all my pocket money and never spent a bean, and in those days £1 still felt like a lot, you could almost buy four Mars bars for that, back when they were 26p each. Good times.
Not quite sure how the musical association came about – maybe that was the piped music one day when I found some treasure. Can’t say, but that’s the song and the association.”
Tracey Toms: “I have many songs I love, but for me, one that sticks out very strongly is Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. As soon as I hear that intro, I’m transported straight back to The Mariner nightclub in West Quay Road, Poole (now a building site for new luxury waterfront apartments). I can feel myself dancing with Clive to the song, feeling happy and carefree and glad to be alive. Now that my mobility is restricted, remembering how energetically we danced is a lovely memory of those early 80s years.”
Lisa Stockley: “I wanna say Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go BECAUSE there was a really fun (I don’t what it’s called, but like early computer game/Game Boy music type sound?) version of it on either the Robolint or None The Wiser website. It reminds me of being a teenager and having so much fun going to see local bands and everyone having actual websites with all sorts of silly videos and stuff on them. It was really fun. Like, Geocities vibes.”
Justin Cohen: “Favourite song is probably Layla by Eric Clapton. I saw on a recent Ed Sheeran documentary that it was the song that made him want to be a songwriter. It’s impossibly complex and aggravatingly difficult to play with all those key changes, but dammit, I’ll keep trying!”
Chira Tochia: “So many to choose but Stevie Wonder – Happy Birthday because as kids we’d have to wait for that to be played before you were allowed downstairs on our birthdays. We now still play it to each other as adults and have passed on the tradition to my nephews. Still don’t know all the words though.”
Mark Masters: “Nirvana – Stay Away and Clinic – Walking With Thee. These songs are the first that my children could shout a chorus too. One chorus is “stay away” and the other is “no”’ Now, whenever these pop on up on Spotify, it’s instinctive. I’ve taught my two girls the virtues of shouting, not singing when it comes to the art of rock and roll. For that, I am a proud parent. They learned it as toddlers!”
Kate Flemming: ”One of my favourite songs is So What by P!nk. I’m a massive P!nk fan and have seen her live four times since 2009. She always ends her shows with So What where she flies around the crowd in a harness using wires.
It’s a real high point and she clearly enjoys it as much as the crowd. Whenever I hear this it reminds me of seeing her perform this live and it’s always the end of a fantastic night, also exhausting due to a lot of singing enthusiastically for a couple of hours!”
Westrow Cooper: “If I’d answered yesterday I would have said Bob Dylan – Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. Reminds me of teenage years and discovering Dylan and listening to him endlessly. Catching up on his past records. Trying to catch the words – in those analogue days, no other way than to play it over again.
The song is a cautionary tale (which you will ignore) of everything you want, but are not going to find as a bored privileged teenager in the English countryside, impatient for life to start, for something to happen. To start out on burgundy, before hitting the harder stuff.
Where is sweet Melinda, who ‘speaks good English and invites you up into her room.’Yes, give me howling at the moon any day.
That ‘speaks good English’ is such a strange intriguing detail, only much later realising (or being told probably, and of course pretending I had known it all along) that speaking English is simply one of her USPs for attracting customers. Mysterious goddess turning a trick. Like the poet himself.
Of course this sickly youth was going to be mesmerised by a line like ‘and my best friend the doctor won’t even tell me what it is I’ve got.’ Finally, a song with me in it. Now just get me a ticket to Juarez. (Wherever that is).
Standing back, the song also provides a little lesson in creatively just getting on with it. Clearly you can write a line like ‘You better go back to from where you came’, to get the rhyme with ‘same’, and still end up with a masterpiece. That is, as long as you can also write ‘up on Housing Project Hill it’s either fortune or fame, you must pick up one or the other, though neither are to be what they claim.
That ‘claim’ drawled out, extended like ‘coast’ in the last verse, completely immersing you in the story, so that you’re right there and leave looking just like a ghost.
Thinking about it now, how does he get away with it? So slapdash. Yet this song, these words have been going round and round in my head for years. And it seems Dylan isn’t finished with it either. There’s a brilliant new version on his latest album, Shadow Kingdom.”
Westrow Cooper: “Then again… if I was answering today, I might say Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime. The greatest song ever written. Which I even managed to weave into my father-of-the-bride speech. ‘You may find yourself… behind the wheel of a large automobile… and you may ask yourself, well how did I get here?’ Hey; I’ve never seen this before. These songs connect!”
Dee Geary: “My all time favourite song is Elvis Presley – American Trilogy. A song that I love though is Summer Holiday by Cliff Richard. This reminds of my carefree days when life was good and simple things in your life meant so much. It was my first ever song I was allowed to listen to on the radio after my Dad had listened to Sing Something Simple.”
Alan Braithwaite: “Doves – Cedar Room reminds me of the most perfect festival experience EVER. I left my mates at the main stage at V Festival as I wanted to see Doves on the other stage. As I battled the crowds I got there just as Cedar Room was starting. By the end of the song I upped and left. The song had been so so perfect on so many levels, that I didn’t need to see anymore of them.”
Alan Braithwaite: “The Verve – Lucky Man was our wedding song for when we walked out of the church. We’d persuaded the organist to play it and it sounded EPIC echoing around on our special day.”
Mark Passera: “Impossible to say… I think I will go for Can’t You Hear Me Knocking by the Rolling Stones, but it really does vary, as you no doubt know, depending on mood.”
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this article. Perhaps you’d also enjoy the compilation of responses I received to the question “what was the first chart single you bought?”. Read it here
Liam Toms 