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| The songs our parents gave us | The songs our parents gave us |
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| 'My mother would listen to the Carpenters while ironing' | 'My mother would listen to the Carpenters while ironing' |
| Of the handful of albums my parents owned, it was The Carpenters' Singles 1969-1973 that struck me the most. I remember being particularly fascinated by Rainy Days and Mondays. With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect it was because it was the first piece of music I had ever heard that appeared to perfectly suit the circumstances in which I heard it. My mother would listen to the Carpenters in the afternoon, while doing the ironing in the front room, and I remember thinking that was what the woman in the song was probably doing too. In my head she was singing it in in an anonymous house on a cul-de-sac in an estate like ours, while doing something boring like housework, in that awful, interminable dead zone between the lunchtime kids' programmes ending and the afternoon ones beginning. I never felt that about my parents' other records: I don't know what I thought the bloke singing Brown Sugar was doing, but I was pretty certain he wasn't ironing. | Of the handful of albums my parents owned, it was The Carpenters' Singles 1969-1973 that struck me the most. I remember being particularly fascinated by Rainy Days and Mondays. With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect it was because it was the first piece of music I had ever heard that appeared to perfectly suit the circumstances in which I heard it. My mother would listen to the Carpenters in the afternoon, while doing the ironing in the front room, and I remember thinking that was what the woman in the song was probably doing too. In my head she was singing it in in an anonymous house on a cul-de-sac in an estate like ours, while doing something boring like housework, in that awful, interminable dead zone between the lunchtime kids' programmes ending and the afternoon ones beginning. I never felt that about my parents' other records: I don't know what I thought the bloke singing Brown Sugar was doing, but I was pretty certain he wasn't ironing. |
| Something about the song's sadness, and its pertinence must have seeped into me. I started loving the Carpenters and never stopped, even when it was deeply uncool to do so (they never were and will never be, the kind of band it's OK for a teenage boy to like), even before I could dissect why I found their music so moving. The weird combination of velvety richness and ineffable melancholy in Karen Carpenter's voice, the way it tugs at the lushness of the arrangements, the nagging sense that, in this glossily perfect, light-entertainment soundworld, something is desperately wrong. I still love them today. Alexis Petridis | Something about the song's sadness, and its pertinence must have seeped into me. I started loving the Carpenters and never stopped, even when it was deeply uncool to do so (they never were and will never be, the kind of band it's OK for a teenage boy to like), even before I could dissect why I found their music so moving. The weird combination of velvety richness and ineffable melancholy in Karen Carpenter's voice, the way it tugs at the lushness of the arrangements, the nagging sense that, in this glossily perfect, light-entertainment soundworld, something is desperately wrong. I still love them today. Alexis Petridis |
| 'I see my mum as a teenager' | 'I see my mum as a teenager' |
| My mum got pregnant with me when she was 16 and had me when she was 17. This was of no interest to me until I got older, when I began to recognise it in strange measurements – at 21, I thought, when mum was my age, she had a four-year-old. At 30, I thought, when mum was my age, she had a teenager. We only really talked about it once, over a long boozy dinner, when she told me things I'd never known. She had been offered a council house away from our hometown, she said, but didn't want to move away. She juggled a baby and a part-time job on her own, at 17, so she could rent a tiny house, with no bathroom, just a toilet in the garden and the kitchen sink for washing. She told me she bought books from the jumble sale and read to me all the time, to prove a point to everyone who told her she had made a mistake. Why would I know this? I had never asked. The determination stunned me. | My mum got pregnant with me when she was 16 and had me when she was 17. This was of no interest to me until I got older, when I began to recognise it in strange measurements – at 21, I thought, when mum was my age, she had a four-year-old. At 30, I thought, when mum was my age, she had a teenager. We only really talked about it once, over a long boozy dinner, when she told me things I'd never known. She had been offered a council house away from our hometown, she said, but didn't want to move away. She juggled a baby and a part-time job on her own, at 17, so she could rent a tiny house, with no bathroom, just a toilet in the garden and the kitchen sink for washing. She told me she bought books from the jumble sale and read to me all the time, to prove a point to everyone who told her she had made a mistake. Why would I know this? I had never asked. The determination stunned me. |
| Wherever we lived, there were records in the cupboard with "Geraldine" in Biro on the corners of the sleeves. They were from before, when she went to discos and took her singles up to the DJ booth. Echo and the Bunnymen. The Human League. She told me how she and her friend Julie would sew themselves into their drainpipe jeans and get the train to Sheffield, hoping to be spotted by Phil Oakey like Joanne and Susan had been. Bauhaus. Joy Division. She told me how she would draw the curtains in her bedroom, close her eyes, lie on the bed and listen to Love Will Tear Us Apart, over and over, my grandma shouting up at her to turn that rubbish down. In the opening rumble, as the chords smash against the bass, I see mum as a teenager, when she barely had time to be one. It's funny that the bleakest of songs makes me think of courage. Rebecca Nicholson | Wherever we lived, there were records in the cupboard with "Geraldine" in Biro on the corners of the sleeves. They were from before, when she went to discos and took her singles up to the DJ booth. Echo and the Bunnymen. The Human League. She told me how she and her friend Julie would sew themselves into their drainpipe jeans and get the train to Sheffield, hoping to be spotted by Phil Oakey like Joanne and Susan had been. Bauhaus. Joy Division. She told me how she would draw the curtains in her bedroom, close her eyes, lie on the bed and listen to Love Will Tear Us Apart, over and over, my grandma shouting up at her to turn that rubbish down. In the opening rumble, as the chords smash against the bass, I see mum as a teenager, when she barely had time to be one. It's funny that the bleakest of songs makes me think of courage. Rebecca Nicholson |
| 'It was the only record my dad owned' | 'It was the only record my dad owned' |
| Officially, my father's favourite song was Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. I never heard him express any heartfelt admiration for it, but he used to whistle the refrain absentmindedly while driving, and it was the song we always played on his behalf whenever we encountered a jukebox in a diner. My mother bought him the record for his birthday – for a long time it was the only one he owned. | Officially, my father's favourite song was Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. I never heard him express any heartfelt admiration for it, but he used to whistle the refrain absentmindedly while driving, and it was the song we always played on his behalf whenever we encountered a jukebox in a diner. My mother bought him the record for his birthday – for a long time it was the only one he owned. |
| This would have been around 1969, when the single reached No 4 in the States and was hastily appended to later pressings of Neil Diamond's most recent LP. I was so young I had no idea it was a popular song of the moment; to me it seemed as if it had always been around, like Jingle Bells. I suppose my father's seal of approval also lent it an air of timelessness. He didn't keep up with the charts, and his car radio was invariably tuned to a New York rolling news station with a ticker tape sound in the background. | This would have been around 1969, when the single reached No 4 in the States and was hastily appended to later pressings of Neil Diamond's most recent LP. I was so young I had no idea it was a popular song of the moment; to me it seemed as if it had always been around, like Jingle Bells. I suppose my father's seal of approval also lent it an air of timelessness. He didn't keep up with the charts, and his car radio was invariably tuned to a New York rolling news station with a ticker tape sound in the background. |
| I don't know if my father ever listened to that album on purpose. I played it a lot over the years, with my head against the speaker, trying to figure out what Neil Diamond was going on about. I'm still not entirely sure, but the melody is in my bones. I often find myself whistling it when I'm thinking of nothing. Tim Dowling | I don't know if my father ever listened to that album on purpose. I played it a lot over the years, with my head against the speaker, trying to figure out what Neil Diamond was going on about. I'm still not entirely sure, but the melody is in my bones. I often find myself whistling it when I'm thinking of nothing. Tim Dowling |
| 'I had left the song behind without even seeing it go' | 'I had left the song behind without even seeing it go' |
| We are lying face down on the dining room floor, my brother and me, the tape player between us. Stop, rewind, stop, play, tugging at tufts of taupe carpet while we try to figure it out. We have listened to every word of Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue and despite our best efforts to imagine the worst, we can't be sure what profanities the long, censorial beep is hiding in the phrase "I'm the ------- that named you Sue." My brother's guess is better than mine. (He's older). "Bloody bastard!" A Boy Named Sue was our favourite song, but more than that, our favourite story. We arrived at our first Johnny Cash tape via our dad, who, possibly wanting his taste to prevail across TV and stereo, pointed it out in the WH Smith January sale. It cost 99p. A Boy Named Sue fitted with the potent males we grew up with in our house, John Wayne being another, and with the belief that physical strength indicated strength of character. The song contains the most amazing fight scene in which Sue loses a piece of his ear. Typically of Cash, it is not strength but humanity that triumphs. | We are lying face down on the dining room floor, my brother and me, the tape player between us. Stop, rewind, stop, play, tugging at tufts of taupe carpet while we try to figure it out. We have listened to every word of Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue and despite our best efforts to imagine the worst, we can't be sure what profanities the long, censorial beep is hiding in the phrase "I'm the ------- that named you Sue." My brother's guess is better than mine. (He's older). "Bloody bastard!" A Boy Named Sue was our favourite song, but more than that, our favourite story. We arrived at our first Johnny Cash tape via our dad, who, possibly wanting his taste to prevail across TV and stereo, pointed it out in the WH Smith January sale. It cost 99p. A Boy Named Sue fitted with the potent males we grew up with in our house, John Wayne being another, and with the belief that physical strength indicated strength of character. The song contains the most amazing fight scene in which Sue loses a piece of his ear. Typically of Cash, it is not strength but humanity that triumphs. |
| It was in the late 90s that I had left the song behind without even seeing it go. Now I was desperate to hear it. I started buying Cash again. At our wedding we danced to Jackson ("We got married in a fever …"). Now Cash is everywhere. I hear him in the hairdresser's. And "son of a bitch" is all those beeps were hiding. Paula Cocozza | It was in the late 90s that I had left the song behind without even seeing it go. Now I was desperate to hear it. I started buying Cash again. At our wedding we danced to Jackson ("We got married in a fever …"). Now Cash is everywhere. I hear him in the hairdresser's. And "son of a bitch" is all those beeps were hiding. Paula Cocozza |
| 'An inappropriate song to remind me of my folks' | 'An inappropriate song to remind me of my folks' |
| Athra Baras Ki Tu is by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi, from the soundtrack to the Bollywood film Suhaag. First off, this song is about a gorgeous dancing girl – the perennial Punjabi euphemism for sex worker – being chased about a brothel by a drunk, desperately in love, petty criminal. It's flirty and joyous and my mum would just like to make it really clear, that it's inappropriate for it to remind me of my folks. But, like every other fashionable young Pakistani couple in the 70s, my parents were major Bollywood disco fans. Chunky platforms, the tightest of flares, his'n'hers bouffy hair – they went for the full kohl-lined, works. Their commitment to the cause was deep. Two hour-long round-trips to Leicester were made to catch the films at the cinema, mutton chops were grown, vinyl was collected and dusted and locked away in a cupboard, out of stubby-fingered reach. This was the golden era of Lata and Rafi, duetting in this case for Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha, India's most glamorous screen couple, and forever in my head, the Hindi cinema version of my own, pre-me, parents. When Suhaag was released in 1979, Amitabh and Rekha were at peak chemistry and the film was the event of the year. | Athra Baras Ki Tu is by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi, from the soundtrack to the Bollywood film Suhaag. First off, this song is about a gorgeous dancing girl – the perennial Punjabi euphemism for sex worker – being chased about a brothel by a drunk, desperately in love, petty criminal. It's flirty and joyous and my mum would just like to make it really clear, that it's inappropriate for it to remind me of my folks. But, like every other fashionable young Pakistani couple in the 70s, my parents were major Bollywood disco fans. Chunky platforms, the tightest of flares, his'n'hers bouffy hair – they went for the full kohl-lined, works. Their commitment to the cause was deep. Two hour-long round-trips to Leicester were made to catch the films at the cinema, mutton chops were grown, vinyl was collected and dusted and locked away in a cupboard, out of stubby-fingered reach. This was the golden era of Lata and Rafi, duetting in this case for Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha, India's most glamorous screen couple, and forever in my head, the Hindi cinema version of my own, pre-me, parents. When Suhaag was released in 1979, Amitabh and Rekha were at peak chemistry and the film was the event of the year. |
| Inconveniently for them, mum decided to give birth to my brother two months prematurely and was in hospital resting and restless when my dad, not so big on detail, did the most romantic thing he could think of: turned up at the ward, draped her best fur coat over her nightie and secreted her out to the pictures anyway. This song doesn't just define family car trips and evenings around the turntable, it's a ridiculous, comical reminder of my parents' relationship. Nosheen Iqbal | Inconveniently for them, mum decided to give birth to my brother two months prematurely and was in hospital resting and restless when my dad, not so big on detail, did the most romantic thing he could think of: turned up at the ward, draped her best fur coat over her nightie and secreted her out to the pictures anyway. This song doesn't just define family car trips and evenings around the turntable, it's a ridiculous, comical reminder of my parents' relationship. Nosheen Iqbal |
| 'Mum said music was something to be listened to properly' | 'Mum said music was something to be listened to properly' |
| It wasn't a record player, it was a radiogram. My mum was very clear on that. A record player was the portable Dansette that my eldest sister played her early Stones singles on. The radiogram was a large piece of furniture covered in a teak veneer that stood on four legs in one corner of the living-room. It was, so my mum said, the last word in high-fidelity sound reproduction. It must have cost the best part of £50 in the early 60s and could even have played records in stereo if we had had any. | It wasn't a record player, it was a radiogram. My mum was very clear on that. A record player was the portable Dansette that my eldest sister played her early Stones singles on. The radiogram was a large piece of furniture covered in a teak veneer that stood on four legs in one corner of the living-room. It was, so my mum said, the last word in high-fidelity sound reproduction. It must have cost the best part of £50 in the early 60s and could even have played records in stereo if we had had any. |
| I had a love-hate relationship with the radiogram. I admired its size, its quality and its inaccessibility. My dad had no interest in music whatsoever, but my mum had been to music college after the war and couldn't stand the idea of having music playing in the background. Music was something to be sat down for in silence and listened to properly. It certainly wasn't any of my sister's records; only her classical records were allowed to be played on her radiogram. | I had a love-hate relationship with the radiogram. I admired its size, its quality and its inaccessibility. My dad had no interest in music whatsoever, but my mum had been to music college after the war and couldn't stand the idea of having music playing in the background. Music was something to be sat down for in silence and listened to properly. It certainly wasn't any of my sister's records; only her classical records were allowed to be played on her radiogram. |
| Being only six and having no say in anything, I was often stuck listening to my mum's records. Not least because I had no records – or taste – of my own and my 11-year old sister was not going share hers with me. So I spent what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, listening to Mahler, Beethoven and Kathleen Ferrier. My Mum adored Kathleen Ferrier. I could take her or leave her. Leave her preferably. | Being only six and having no say in anything, I was often stuck listening to my mum's records. Not least because I had no records – or taste – of my own and my 11-year old sister was not going share hers with me. So I spent what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, listening to Mahler, Beethoven and Kathleen Ferrier. My Mum adored Kathleen Ferrier. I could take her or leave her. Leave her preferably. |
| One day, many years later, long after the radiogram had died and I was alone in the house, I got out one of my mum's Ferrier records and started listening to her singing Che faro from Gluck's opera Orfeo and Euridice. Ferrier's deep alto voice was the most affecting musical instrument I had ever heard. I'm still not sure quite why I chose to play that aria at that time or why I suddenly became aware of the beauty of Ferrier's voice and Gluck's music, but it remains my one must-have desert island piece of music. Not even the organist, playing it at about a quarter of the right speed at our wedding 28 years ago, could spoil it. John Crace | One day, many years later, long after the radiogram had died and I was alone in the house, I got out one of my mum's Ferrier records and started listening to her singing Che faro from Gluck's opera Orfeo and Euridice. Ferrier's deep alto voice was the most affecting musical instrument I had ever heard. I'm still not sure quite why I chose to play that aria at that time or why I suddenly became aware of the beauty of Ferrier's voice and Gluck's music, but it remains my one must-have desert island piece of music. Not even the organist, playing it at about a quarter of the right speed at our wedding 28 years ago, could spoil it. John Crace |
| 'A song sung by the Devil!' | 'A song sung by the Devil!' |
| A lifelong seeker of new music, my dad never really tried to school me in the classics of his youth. The sole exception happened when I was 10 and still regarded pop as a kind of benign backroom hum that was nice enough but nowhere near as interesting as my specialist subject: the second world war. One morning he was driving me to school when he said, "I think you'll like this" and played me Sympathy for the Devil. | A lifelong seeker of new music, my dad never really tried to school me in the classics of his youth. The sole exception happened when I was 10 and still regarded pop as a kind of benign backroom hum that was nice enough but nowhere near as interesting as my specialist subject: the second world war. One morning he was driving me to school when he said, "I think you'll like this" and played me Sympathy for the Devil. |
| A song sung by the Devil! Mentioning the second world war! I had no idea such a thing was possible. It didn't even feel like pop music to me but something that had wriggled out of the blood-soaked pages of my Commando and Tales From the Crypt comic books. It pulsed with an illicit mystery that I couldn't fathom even after my dad, a teacher by instinct as well as by trade, explained the historical references to me. It wasn't just a record; it was a nightmare you could dance to. | A song sung by the Devil! Mentioning the second world war! I had no idea such a thing was possible. It didn't even feel like pop music to me but something that had wriggled out of the blood-soaked pages of my Commando and Tales From the Crypt comic books. It pulsed with an illicit mystery that I couldn't fathom even after my dad, a teacher by instinct as well as by trade, explained the historical references to me. It wasn't just a record; it was a nightmare you could dance to. |
| Looking back, I'm touched that my dad knew exactly which song in his huge collection would thrill a musically clueless 10-year-old. He picked out a personalised gift that said: "Don't underestimate music. It can do anything." Dorian Lynskey | Looking back, I'm touched that my dad knew exactly which song in his huge collection would thrill a musically clueless 10-year-old. He picked out a personalised gift that said: "Don't underestimate music. It can do anything." Dorian Lynskey |
| 'It suited our family's inexpressive temperament perfectly' | 'It suited our family's inexpressive temperament perfectly' |
| Wichita Lineman (the words of Jimmy Webb sung by Glen Campbell) had been playing in the background for years until one day when I was about seven or eight I suddenly seemed to become old enough to hear, properly at last, one of my mum and dad's favourite songs. The words didn't make much sense at first – for a start, I would need "Wichita", "lineman" and "county" explained to me once it had finished – but I could hear the … well, I would need a new word for that too, but a long time later I would come across "yearning" and be able to give a name to that strange ache the music produced in me. | Wichita Lineman (the words of Jimmy Webb sung by Glen Campbell) had been playing in the background for years until one day when I was about seven or eight I suddenly seemed to become old enough to hear, properly at last, one of my mum and dad's favourite songs. The words didn't make much sense at first – for a start, I would need "Wichita", "lineman" and "county" explained to me once it had finished – but I could hear the … well, I would need a new word for that too, but a long time later I would come across "yearning" and be able to give a name to that strange ache the music produced in me. |
| From then on I played and replayed that record on my own account. So many times that I suspect I actually managed to ruin it for my poor parents – but what could I do? I was in love – with the words now even more than the music (though in later years an ex-boyfriend would explain to me what every part of the latter was doing and why and how it was working all together to produce something even greater than the sum of its parts, which made me fall in love with him all over again). "I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road/Searching in the sun for another overload ..." And there you are, with that lonely hero, moving across a barren landscape, silhouetted against the sun, listening with him to the singing in the wires and the howling in his heart. "And I need you more than want you / And I want you for all time." | From then on I played and replayed that record on my own account. So many times that I suspect I actually managed to ruin it for my poor parents – but what could I do? I was in love – with the words now even more than the music (though in later years an ex-boyfriend would explain to me what every part of the latter was doing and why and how it was working all together to produce something even greater than the sum of its parts, which made me fall in love with him all over again). "I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road/Searching in the sun for another overload ..." And there you are, with that lonely hero, moving across a barren landscape, silhouetted against the sun, listening with him to the singing in the wires and the howling in his heart. "And I need you more than want you / And I want you for all time." |
| It's the sparest of songs – just 16 lines, 13 if you don't count the repeated final verse – and it suited our family's inexpressive collective temperament perfectly. Whatever damage I did to their enjoyment during those first obsessive months has since been repaired and now when we gather we will play it, and it alone has the power to still us all while we follow that battered stoic across the state and, separately together, indulge in a little vicarious longing of our own. Lucy Mangan | It's the sparest of songs – just 16 lines, 13 if you don't count the repeated final verse – and it suited our family's inexpressive collective temperament perfectly. Whatever damage I did to their enjoyment during those first obsessive months has since been repaired and now when we gather we will play it, and it alone has the power to still us all while we follow that battered stoic across the state and, separately together, indulge in a little vicarious longing of our own. Lucy Mangan |
| 'They loved the romance of the song' | 'They loved the romance of the song' |
| My parents never met a love song they couldn't mock. When The Cardigans' Lovefool was everywhere in the summer of 1996, my mum would dance around my room with laundry, sneering at the foolish "pretend that you love me" lyric. Whenever Al Green's Let's Stay Together came on the radio, my dad would scoff at "whether the times are good or bad", and say: "Al, my man – who likes to suffer?" But the song that always reminds me of my parents is the duet If This World Were Mine by Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn. I remember sitting on the floor of our living room in Lagos while they danced to it and made us laugh rubbishing the lyrics. | My parents never met a love song they couldn't mock. When The Cardigans' Lovefool was everywhere in the summer of 1996, my mum would dance around my room with laundry, sneering at the foolish "pretend that you love me" lyric. Whenever Al Green's Let's Stay Together came on the radio, my dad would scoff at "whether the times are good or bad", and say: "Al, my man – who likes to suffer?" But the song that always reminds me of my parents is the duet If This World Were Mine by Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn. I remember sitting on the floor of our living room in Lagos while they danced to it and made us laugh rubbishing the lyrics. |
| "What kind of gifts are birds and bees?" my dad asked as he twirled my mum. "The bees to sting you and the birdsong to soothe you," my mum replied. It was for our benefit, of course. They were laughing at the reputation Nigerians have for being practical creatures, but I suspect they loved the romance of the song, and the singers too – I got a sad phone call from mum when Luther Vandross died. Years ago, I asked what her and dad's song was. She didn't hesitate: Lean On Me by Bill Withers. So now I think of them when I hear that too. Bim Adewunmi | "What kind of gifts are birds and bees?" my dad asked as he twirled my mum. "The bees to sting you and the birdsong to soothe you," my mum replied. It was for our benefit, of course. They were laughing at the reputation Nigerians have for being practical creatures, but I suspect they loved the romance of the song, and the singers too – I got a sad phone call from mum when Luther Vandross died. Years ago, I asked what her and dad's song was. She didn't hesitate: Lean On Me by Bill Withers. So now I think of them when I hear that too. Bim Adewunmi |
| 'A song that smells of warm toast and hot coffee' | 'A song that smells of warm toast and hot coffee' |
| I grew up in an all but rockless household. We had two pop records – a 45 of I Feel Fine by the Beatles and a battered copy of Eric Burdon's 1967 album Winds of Change – neither of which were ever played by anyone except me. Dad was the music lover, and he listened exclusively to classical and jazz, on his own, behind closed doors. | I grew up in an all but rockless household. We had two pop records – a 45 of I Feel Fine by the Beatles and a battered copy of Eric Burdon's 1967 album Winds of Change – neither of which were ever played by anyone except me. Dad was the music lover, and he listened exclusively to classical and jazz, on his own, behind closed doors. |
| But the song that brings back childhood most vividly comes from my mother – it's the English folk song The Foggy, Foggy Dew, which we had on a 7in single, sung by Peter Pears and arranged by Benjamin Britten. And even then, it's not Pears' version I remember, it's the fact that Mum used to sing it around the house when I was small. It's a song about infidelity – a woman slipping into the bed of a man not her husband – and single parenthood. But for me it will always be a song that smells of warm toast and hot coffee, that brings a picture of the world viewed from three feet high. It may be about transience, but to me The Foggy, Foggy Dew is the sound of security. Michael Hann | But the song that brings back childhood most vividly comes from my mother – it's the English folk song The Foggy, Foggy Dew, which we had on a 7in single, sung by Peter Pears and arranged by Benjamin Britten. And even then, it's not Pears' version I remember, it's the fact that Mum used to sing it around the house when I was small. It's a song about infidelity – a woman slipping into the bed of a man not her husband – and single parenthood. But for me it will always be a song that smells of warm toast and hot coffee, that brings a picture of the world viewed from three feet high. It may be about transience, but to me The Foggy, Foggy Dew is the sound of security. Michael Hann |
| 'I couldn't hold back the tears' | 'I couldn't hold back the tears' |
| It is 1987 and we are driving back home from an amazing camping holiday, back in the days when that phrase was not an oxymoron. I am in the backseat, miffed that the holiday is over, when Paul Simon's All Around The World (The Myth Of Fingerprints) comes on the car stereo, a song that I have heard approximately 1,723 times already at the age of seven on the grounds that Gracelands is the only cassette we have had in the car on that – or any other – car journey since its release. The emotional pull of the music – which I wrongly assumed at the time was not about how human similarities can help us triumph over apartheid but rather the Blackpool illuminations – combines with the post-holiday melancholy and I realise that I can't hold back the tears. The emotion of childhood music may well stay with you, not just directly (I'm not the only member of my generation to play Gracelands thanks to a car stereo beating me into submission) but also in the music it influenced – my favourite record of this year is an African-influenced album of dream pop by John Wizards. Certainly you remember that early music's impact more. This was the first time music had made me cry and it wouldn't be the last, although these days I tend to keep the tears hidden from my parents if they're driving me back home from a week-long camping holiday. Tim Jonze | It is 1987 and we are driving back home from an amazing camping holiday, back in the days when that phrase was not an oxymoron. I am in the backseat, miffed that the holiday is over, when Paul Simon's All Around The World (The Myth Of Fingerprints) comes on the car stereo, a song that I have heard approximately 1,723 times already at the age of seven on the grounds that Gracelands is the only cassette we have had in the car on that – or any other – car journey since its release. The emotional pull of the music – which I wrongly assumed at the time was not about how human similarities can help us triumph over apartheid but rather the Blackpool illuminations – combines with the post-holiday melancholy and I realise that I can't hold back the tears. The emotion of childhood music may well stay with you, not just directly (I'm not the only member of my generation to play Gracelands thanks to a car stereo beating me into submission) but also in the music it influenced – my favourite record of this year is an African-influenced album of dream pop by John Wizards. Certainly you remember that early music's impact more. This was the first time music had made me cry and it wouldn't be the last, although these days I tend to keep the tears hidden from my parents if they're driving me back home from a week-long camping holiday. Tim Jonze |
| Share your favourite songs from your childhood below | Share your favourite songs from your childhood below |
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