Songs that take you back to a particular moment in time

[DuggeesWoggle]

Just heard Abba's Dancing Queen on the radio and it took me straight back to being about 7 in back seat of mum & dad's rover driving round Scotland. This was mid 80s when Abba were deeply uncool.

Earlier I heard Dancing on a Friday Night by the Darkness which reminded me of sitting in a field at the end of a village fair in Suffolk with a friend I was on holiday with and some other folks we'd just met, sitting on hay bales drinking cider in the golden evening sun. The whole of that album reminds me of the summer of 2003, great memories.

Funny how particular songs can take you right back to very specific memories. I could never hear Mulder and Scully by Catatonia without being reminded of the time in 6th form my friend snogged the guy I had been out with for a short while and was still madly in love with (she didn't know). My heart broke!

What tunes trigger particular memories for you?

Wake up Boo is one of mine too. It was always on the radio when I was dropped off at School for what seems like the entire term.

Coffee & TV by Blur - at home waiting to walk to school for my Maths GCSE and Jo Whiley played it and said it was for everybody waiting to do their Maths exam. The nerves kicked in then.

The PJ Harvey album Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea because I was playing it on repeat when I was about 18 and I got the Flu. I couldn’t listen to it for years after, it was like a Pavlovian response.

I could go on and on.

I posted on the Soft Cell thread that Tainted Love takes me back to Freshers week in 1981. It was constantly on repeat in the Students Union. I was terrified and excited at the same time.

Jefferson Airplane : White Rabbit
= the coffee bar at Uni

Night swimming by REM. Suddenly I'm flat sitting in a Croyden bock of flats with my army boyfriend, looking out of the window at the lights below. We were only 19 and felt so grown up. Even now when I hear it, I feel a pang for past youth and plans that never made it to fruition. Beautiful song.

Anything from Different Class by Pulp instantly takes me back to my first house share, I can literally smell the —fags and lager— room

And also 2 Become 1 by the Spice Girls- it used to be on MTV and VH1 all the time after the pub one winter. As did that Spaceman song by Babylon Zoo that was used on a Levi’s ad for silver jeans. I get chest pains of nostalgia with any of those.

The Mavericks - Just Want To Dance The Night Away takes me back to the most perfect moment when DS was a few weeks old. It was a gorgeous sunny May morning and I had my new DS and 5 year old DD. DH was driving us along a coastal road and the sun was glinting off the sea. I truly felt I had it all. I’ve been so lucky. That song always takes m3 right back to that moment.

I find music can be very evocative of a Times or place. Elton John’s Candle in the Wind takes me back to my teens, meetings snout our school newspaper and waiting for my dad to pick me up.

I hear Zoom by Fat Larry’s Band and I’m transported back to a particular commute I had along the cherry tree blossomed road along the River Thames.

Simon and Garfunkrl’s album Breakaway brings back memories of sharing a room with my best friend in a large house full of young people from our local church.

And This house ain’t big enough for the both of us by Sparks takes me straight back to the times I spent as a teenager with friends in one of the family’s garden summer house. One of my friends was a secret smoker and we’d play records, talk etc ... she hid a stash of peppermints in there to freshen her breath when it was time to go home.

Oh lots. Summer of 69 and Living on a prayer will always be Harper (uni) songs for me. Last weekend at a wedding party they played Maria by Cher and a whole bunch of us were transported back 20 years to a young farmers do in a village hall. Tonight in a pub having supper and Green Day Basket Case reminded me of dancing with DH, when we hadn't long been together. Oh Sclub Reach will always be 'the girls'

Anything from Stars of CCTV by Hard-Fi takes me right back to 2006 when I was doing a years work placement for uni miles away from home. Used to listen to it on the long bus journey to work every day.

Angie by the Rolling Stones reminds me of Alcuin bar at York uni circa 1985.

There was a song that went Woah I'm going to Barbados.... and that reminds me of sitting on the roof of a henhouse, listening to the top 40 on the radio with my older cousins

Air supply , All out of love takes me back to school trips

Maggie May - early teens & hanging around the local rec with some slightly disreputable boys 😉

Sinead O Connor Nothing Compares 2 U. School disco, first slow dance at about 14 years old! Early nineties.

I wanna know what love is by foreigner takes me back to my first Spanish holiday. The bar in The apartment complex had it on all the time. I was 17 and had a holiday romance.

Mmmbop by Hanson, I was driving on
a sunny day to meet my friends and boyfriend for my birthday. I was 24 young, in love and carefree. I drive back two days later 25 single and devestated. I always remember how I felt though when I hear mmmBop it was such an amazing happy ‘everything is amazing’ feeling.

Kiss me by sixpence none the richer, I was 19 or twenty it was a great summer (despite working all the frigging time). My brother got his degree, my dad retired due to ill health, my mum and dad had their silver wedding and I was desperately in love with an utter waste of space. Hearing that song i’m Young, gorgeous, size 10 and full of wonder about the future. I had so much potential I wasted!

Losing my Religion - 'themed' party nights at friends student house in late 80s. 40+ people jumping up and down on 12x12 wooden lounge floorboard.

September by Earth Wind and Fire takes me back to arriving very late at a hotel in Benidorm and that song was playing in the bar/entertainment area as we checked in.

I bought New Adventures in Hi Fi by REM when DS 1 was a couple of days old. I think it had just been released. Every time I hear 'Wake Up bomb' it takes me back to holding him and bouncing around the living room with him.
Caught Stealing by Jane's Addiction takes me back to bar in Andorra where we used to go after a days skiing.

Solsbury Hill -Peter Gabriel. I975 and I was a student nurse at a big London hospital. This was constantly on the juke box in the hospital social club and it brings back such great memories of madness, sadness and lots of fun. Great days.

Oh and Pure Morning by Placebo, dancing with an amazing friend who dances with the angels now. RIP tiny imp!

'Don't you want me Baby' Human League...in fact the whole DARE album takes me straight back to January 1981 and deep snow. I was 13, school was shut for a week with deep glorious snow that made everywhere silent.
And we played Dare on a loop!

Believe by Cher, takes me right back to freshers week in uni in Newcastle in 1998. Good times!

There she goes by The La's. College bar and a ginger beer because i was in heavy training for a university sport. I was running life all guns blazing. Glory days.

Me to VivaDixie
Any song from Dare or Duran Duran Rio take me back to Christmas parties, I’d have been 15 and having brilliant time.
Prince When Doves Cry, playing it on tape in my boyfriends car, sunshine and the windows down, looking at scammonden damn.

BestisWest I've never really liked that Mavericks song but what a lovely story, I shall think of it whenever I hear it from now on!

MichelleJ79 that song for me is being on a ferry on the way home from a 6th form trip to Prague, dancing with my favourite teacher and a couple of other hardy souls, everyone else being in bed seasick! I started Newcastle uni the following year, great place to be a student!

That should be dam not that I give a damn

So many ms and ns there Tilly