What's the defining song of your youth?

[Appalonia]

I was watching TOTP 1995 tonight and Pulp singing Common People was on. It took me back to a very particular time in the nineties and got me thinking about songs that encapsulate a time in your life.

For me it's Ghost Town by The Specials when I was a teenager. Summed up a v bleak time, mass unemployment, race riots, a sense of decline and hopelessness in the early 80s. Also, coming from that part of the UK, it had a particular resonance for me. Obviously there were lots of upbeat songs around at that time too, that I still love, but feels like this song was so much of that time ( tho ironically still feels relevant today...!)

What song do you feel defines your youth?

Human League and Fascination - such good times

Mr. Brightside sprung to mind. Not in an it’s my favourite way, but it was always on at every party and no-one can resist screaming along 😄

Various

Every Breath you Take by The Police - i know its stalkery but at the time it sounded hopelessly romantic.

When Doves Cry by Prince - just fabulous lyrics

Stand and Deliver by Adam and the Ants - reminiscent of the time when every girl in the school had a crush Adam Ant

The Only Way is Up by Yaz. Not defining but do strongly associated with the summer before I headed off to Warwick University. Huge fondness for Ghost Town here too @Appalonia as The Specials are such a Coventry band and Warwick Uni (for the uninformed) is actually on the edge of Coventry😀

Nancy Boy by Placebo. I’m instantly 15 again when I hear it.

Kayleigh ( Marillion) and Suddenly ( Billy Ocean ) transport me back to 1985 when I was in the second year of my nurse training and had just met my now husband .

Billie Jean, by Michael Jackson.

Everything about that song, its iconic video (the first by a black artist to be played on MTV) and Thriller, the album from which it came, just defined the mid 80s in pop culture. Everyone loved it. Young, old, black, white, male, female. It had pop melodies, soul vocals, R n B bass lines & rock guitar solos, all fused together by Jackson & Quincy Jones. Thriller had it all and created music with universal appeal.

Come Into the Garden, Maud.

Crash ..The Primitives

Depends what counts as my youth.

Formative teen years - maybe Blue Monday by New Order. In both positive abd negative ways.

Uni - probably Groove is in the Heart.

20s/getting to grips with life - Born Slippy.

Absolutely loads but the one that springs to mind is The Day We Caught the Train by Ocean Colour Scene.

I remember it playing on the bus as it pulled into a summer camp on a bright sunny day. I've never forgotten that feeling of excitement and possibility with the sun in my face.

Think we must be a similar age!!

The day we caught the train by Ocean Colour Scene.

June 1997, just finished doing our GCSEs and we spent the summer days in the park with a boom box and bottles of hooch and K cider.

Tiger Feet by Mud. 😂 Not quite sure why, but there we are! It was the first thing that sprang to mind.

Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen - started my lifelong love of American rock music, though all my mates were goths and told me I was horribly uncool

Saw him last year for the 1st time at BST and couldn't talk for 2 days afterwards as I'd shouted so much. Seeing him again next month......... can't wait!

Live Forever by Oasis. This was mid teens for me, when I really found my people and my social life.

Definitely can't narrow it down to one song.

Early teens 'Everything I Do' Bryan Adams which was in the charts when I was in my first year of secondary school.

Nirvana never mind conjours up my mid teens.

Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy for the Uni years.

I could pick so many more.

Firestarter!!

Don't look back in anger went to visit my boyfriend at another Uni for the weekend and he had just bought the CD the day it was released stayed up all night listening to it.

Oh and smells like team spirit- my A- level year

Disco 2000 by Pulp

Belting out “Let’s all meet up in the year 2000…” Then all of a sudden it WAS the year 2000. And then the year 2000 was 20 years ago.

Ah yes...how did I forget The Prodigy.

Don’t You Want Me-Human League

The bends and Smells like teen spirit

Parklife - Blur

Spent several great summers in a park mid 90s with a big group of other teens drinking, smoking and chatting shit.

Oh and Jagged little pill, the soundtrack to my late teens 😂