Self-Indulgent Nostalgia - My Life in Music (Top Ten Songs)

Member Name: bondgirlk8

Product:	Top Ten Songs
Date:	01/12/08 (289 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nostaligic

Disadvantages: A bit self indulgent

I came across this category a little while ago and started to have a little think about what my top ten songs would be. I pondered it for days, and still, I'm none the wiser. It's an impossible task.

A different approach was called for. So, the songs I have listed below are not my favourite songs, they are not even necessarily songs that would have been contenders for my favourite songs had that been what I was trying to pick. No. This, my fellow dooyooers, is the soundtrack of the film version of My Life. How dare you mock, my life is totally worthy of a film.

Each song listed below holds a particularly strong memory of a certain point in time and means something to me personally. Collectively they define the first 30 years of my life and I cannot hear any of them without magically being transported back to that point in time.

Before I begin, I will add one that I can't remember from the time - although we all know it, it's played every year. Number 1 in the UK charts when I was born was 'Mary's Boy Child' by Boney M. I add this because I was a 70's baby and the times in which we are born heavily influences the person we become. Looking at the music of the time helps to understand the world into which we are born. I'm glad this was before the days in which mobile phones and the internet ruled our lives. I have no idea if I would have actually survived a school environment in which Facebook existed - I'm so glad I didn't have full details of exactly what I WASN'T invited to. How do today's loners cope with that? No, I was lucky enough not to have to. I'm also forever grateful I wasn't born a day later or number 1 would have been the YMCA - phew, lucky escape! So, we've established I was born lucky, but what of the years that followed? Here is my TEN:


1. HEY MICKEY - TONI BASIL

This is the first record that I can remember owning - yes, young people, RECORD. I was 3, and my Dad bought it for me during a shopping trip together. Even now, I can remember being in the lift back to the car-park with my Dad and staring at the record sleeve. I was especially taken with the cheerleader on the front of the album - the coolest thing ever in my three-year old head! I also liked the name 'Mickey', most likely because the only other 'person' called Mickey I had ever come across was Mickey Mouse. I didn't actually think the song was about him as such, just that Mickey's are all pretty cool. The lift moment is pretty special to me, and one of my earliest memories.

The song had a bit of a second life for me at University as it was a definite student favourite. I'm not sure if it is still a student song, but I wouldn't be surprised. Of course, it had more meaning to 'our lot' - we remember it from our childhood.


2. ETERNAL FLAME - THE BANGLES

I was about 9 or 10 when this was released I think, but it is the song that most reminds me of being little, and of my Mum and my Brother (they used to sing it). More than any other song it represents my childhood (the pre-teen years) and has such strong happy feelings and memories to it that it kind of makes me want to cry. It puts me back in my parent's kitchen, a lovely cosy happy warm place, and reminds me of all my family - Mum, Dad and Brother - as they were when we were growing up and who we are now. I'm going to move on now, I'm filling up.


3. DIZZY - VIC REEVES AND THE WONDERSTUFF

This song reminds me of Middle School Discos on the brink of my teens - these were, like, the biggest night out, EVER! All day at school we'd be all hyped up and excited, then home, out with the crimpers and anything from the Global Hypercolour range, and we were ready. Back to the school hall we would head. It was transformed into another world. There were disco lights and smoke machines. There was a hatch selling cola bottles, lemon bon-bons and cans of fizzy drinks. These were nights of standing round the edge, everyone desperate to dance...but not first. Nights of sugar highs and trying our best to get drunk on cans of Shandy. Disco dancin' and sneaking out of the hall into the courtyard or the gym out of the gaze of the teachers. Ahhhh, the hubba bubba days.


4. ALRIGHT - SUPERGRASS

Supergrass burst into the music scene with their release of Alright during the summer holidays when I was 16 and I loved them instantly. This was quite an exciting and optimistic time for me and a big time of change. I had just finished my GCSEs and was due to start 6th Form College at the end of the summer. This song fitted exactly with the place I was in my head. It sounds light-hearted and carefree. It sounds exactly like that summer back in 1995.


5. GOOD ENOUGH - DODGY

Aarrrgh, that song!!! "If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." It's A-Level results day. Mum has dropped me at the college gates, I've picked up my envelope, hammed up opening it in the way you are obliged to do, peeled the papers out of the envelope...and I've missed the grades I needed for my place at University - by only one grade in one subject. I'm devastated. The hideous prospect of the 'insurance choice' is looming. It's less appealing now it is fast becoming a reality. I'm in the queue to speak to the specialist 'Calm You Down and Tell You Your Options' bloke. The radio is on. They are playing this STUPID song. I'm broken inside and Dodgy are gleefully singing about whether or not something is good enough. I want to punch them. It's not good enough for me, it's certainly not good enough for you. I'm in a BAD mood. Thankfully the bloke did calm me down, and he did tell me my options. It basically amounted to, you are probably in anyway, go home and phone them. I did, and I was. Perhaps it was good enough after all.


6. DAYDREAM BELIEVER - THE MONKEES

This song was massive, I mean seriously MASSIVE at my university. I don't know why but I guess the 1997-2000 Essex students took it on as their own. I can't hear it without thinking of the gloriously dark and sticky Level 2 Bar. This was the place where I frittered away my student days when, perhaps, studying would have been wiser. It has in my head grown from beyond the bar and is now the song that best represents my student days. Even thinking about the campus, the halls, the café, my 2nd and 3rd year student house, the Student Union Bar, Level 2, the Underground Club - its always there playing as the perpetual soundtrack to the whole 'experience' that was University. University was where I met my first real friends, and was a wonderful experience that passed me by in blink - heed my words you current students...enjoy it, it will be ten years past quicker than you ever imagined. This song represents the time that was both the first time I was 'grown up' and also the last time I didn't have to be - the crazy days before the real world kicked in.


7. YOUNG AT HEART - THE BLUEBELLS

Time now for a bit of massive cheese with this Radio 2 anthem and cheesy disco classic. It is here because it reminds me of my 2nd date (and therefore the whole of the beginning of the relationship) with the wonderful man who is now my fiancé. He took me to a comedy club in Nottingham where we watched the various stand-up acts and had a few cheeky drinks. After the stand-up there is what I can only describe as a 'disco-type-affair' (yes, I am aware that 'disco' is a frumpy middle aged word). At the time, Mr Bondgirlk8 didn't dance. No, not ever. He preferred a bit of a cooler, harder image than that. Anyway, that night, he actually allowed me to drag him on to the dance floor for a spot of silly dancing, and we danced about like loons. Crazy, silly, happy dancing. Obviously, this song was played at some point during this episode.


8. FAITHLESS - WE COME 1

This song reminds me of the best friends I have made that I still have. We met after graduation via work and are still great friends even though we no longer work together or even live in the same part of the country. I'm rubbish at keeping in touch with anyone, so the fact these friendships have survived is pretty special. This song puts me at the Virgin Festival - I'm not even sure which one. Around 2002 or 2003 I guess, but to be honest, it reminds me of all of them. At this particular one, Faithless played the sun-set set. The whole sky was orange. It was trippy and moving. Beautiful colours whilst the sun sank behind the stage, seemingly in time with the music, and sharing the experience with the best people who were there for the same reason as me: because music is in our souls.


9. DON'T STOP ME NOW - QUEEN

As you may know from my other reviews, I like to run races from time to time. You may also know my 'Silverstone Story'. I have ran a few full marathons, and lots of half marathons - but this particular half marathon is the race I am most proud of finishing. This was the Silverstone F1 Circuit Half Marathon 2006. It was the WORST race experience of my life being plagued with stomach problems slowing me down and repeatedly forcing me to stop. I honestly didn't think that I would make it through. Of course, that makes actually finishing the race so much more of an achievement. It was in no way my best time for a half marathon, and is not the longest race I've ever run, but it was definitely the most unexpected completion. I remember rounding the final corner, I saw the home straight and the grandstand materialise in front of me. I released that, for the first time in about 12 miles, I was actually going to do it. Finishing was so close. I became aware of the song playing through the speakers in the grandstand and I found something inside me that I thought had died at mile 3. the rest (I know it sounds cheesy) happened in a bit of a slow-motion blur. In my memory, my legs and the music are at normal speed, but the finish line remains fixed in the distance never seeming to get any nearer. It was such a fitting song for the moment and is burnt eternally into my brain. The feeling of crossing the finish line was by far the proudest moment of my racing life. Unfortunately, just after crossing it, I did some sick. Ah well, enriches the memory. The song will always make me smile, and make me proud.


10. CHASING CARS - SNOW PATROL

In the last few years, this song seems to have marked my more significant life moments. The first relates to the time when I moved to London and lived, yes lived, in hotels after having sold my flat in Nottingham and waiting for the purchase of our new house in London to go through. A significant number of weeks were spent living in the Wembley Travelodge (review coming soon), and were still living here the day we got the call to tell us it was completing and we had a move in date. This song was quite new at the time and was regularly featured on the eternally playing music station in the bar/restaurant area. It reminds me of the transitional time painfully (although as always nice in hindsight) stuck in the hotel, and the glorious day of piling up the car and finally going home to our lovely new house.

It cropped up again the other day - providing the inspiration for this piece of writing. In the same day, we finally got a new boss at work (after having being left to go feral for year) who actually turned out to be nice, and got offered an interview for the job I've been dreaming about for months now. Such a change has been a long time in coming. On the tube on the way home, a dude with a guitar got on the train. He sat down a few stops later and started to unconsciously strum. It was in no way intended as a performance, and was not for the benefit of the rest of us. It was just for him and you could visibly see the music coming right out from within. It was lovely. Within a few more stops he was strumming louder and singing. The rest of the carriage was silent and transfixed. The song was Chasing Cars. I don't believe in signs, but it was odd it should be that song on that day. I've needed optimism for such a long time, and this moment helped me find some of me that has been lost for so long.


So there you have it. The first 30 years of my life defined in music. I wonder what music the next 30 will bring. When I'm 60, I'll pop back and let you know.

Thanks for reading

© Bondgirlk8 - December 2008

Summary: Not the best songs - but they mean the world to me.