Play me a track that takes you back to a very specific time and place in your life

[ChippySauce]

I heard Mr Loverman by Shabba Ranks today.
I was immediately 18 again, and the best thing since sliced bread (of course!)
Just been dropped off to my first year uni halls by my brother and sister and I was feeling homesick already!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J83TLc4UrN0

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Deep Blue Something. Circa, 1996. I was a college student in Germany for the summer. I was mad about a boy who was mad about my best friend, who was mad about someone else! All unrequited angst! Song immediately brings me back to that moment

Missing by Everything But the Girl takes me back to doing A Level Art, there were only 3 of us in the class and the other two hardly ever turned up so I just got to paint and listen to the radio, I loved it. The teacher just sat in her office out of the way.

Big Log, Robert Plant. I was sitting in the student union bar at SOAS in the summer of 1982 on my lunch hour from my summer job nearby, drinking a big St Clement's and feeling pretty happy with life. I was about to get married (still married to the same man, actually). This came on the jukebox.

The other one that always takes me back to a specific place is Barbados, Typically Tropical, which was playing as I was browsing in Miss Selfridge on an upper floor of Schofield's department store in Leeds one Saturday afternoon in 1975. I was 14, had just started getting a monthly allowance instead of weekly pocket money and was now buying my own clothes. I felt very grown up indeed!

Brian Adams summer of 69 was on the video jukebox in the hotel bar the week of our wedding

You Get What You Give - New Radicals. Living in a homeless hostel working in a local pub. No TV. Listening to 'Jezza' on BRMB at night. Feeling lonely at the weekends.

The vibrations..cause you're mine.
My very first Northern soul all nighter.
Music hall Nov 1982.

Moon River sung by Andy Williams is the only song that can evoke really strong feelings in me, because my mum always used to sing it to me when I was really small, when I was in bed or she was cuddling me. I’m 57 now and it still gets me whenever I hear it.
It can make me tear up a bit and just reminds me of that feeling of being safe and warm and absolutely loved.

White Lines by Grandmaster Flash. The anthem of my 6th form.
Also Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi (guilty pleasure 😂😂)

Jermaine Jackson, we don’t have to take our clothes off, played on the record player, whilst I bopped around in my puffball skirt as a young teen.

First ever foreign holiday to Majorca. "We didn't light the fire" by Billy Joel. The people in the next room had it on repeat.....

Don Henley "The Boys of Summer" takes me back to 6th form, the biggest crush I had, and him smiling shyly at me across the school field one afternoon while this played on the radio. Still gives me chills hearing it 30 years on!

takes me back to Sunday mornings in the 70’s. DM would always play it while she was prepping Sunday lunch…when I hear it I smell a roast dinner! 😍

Oh so many! Careless Whisper - the slow dance/snogging anthem of my teens.
don’t you want me by the Human League - no 1 when my brother was born
If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys - from the summer I met my husband
Every so often I’ll stumble on one of these songs and it will transport me back to the moment and the feelings will flood back.

You are the Universe - Brand New Heavies

takes me back to the summer I graduated from university- life was full of joy and promise!

Dexy's Midnight Runners, Come on Eileen, 1986.
It was my first year as a kibbutz volunteer in Israel, I was18 years old and it seemed to be playing everywhere!

I often wake up with weird song memories in my head.
The one this morning was a song called 'party girl' by U2 from the early 80s.

I looked it up and it's only ever played live. The lyrics are ridiculous.
Me and my friends used to go to Wales in the late 80s with their family, and in the long car journey this was one of our favourite songs.
Kind of weird when it was kids aged 7-9 singing it?!

'I know a girl called party, party girl. I know she wants more than a party. Party girl.
I know a boy a boy called trash. Trash can. I know he does all that he can. Wham bam...'

It gets worse. Bono at his highest songwriting zenith. 🤣

Anything by the Stone Roses takes me back to the summer after my GCSEs. Everyone was wearing bucket hats and flares.

These are all great!

@FreddysFingers Im sorry you had a tough time, I sincerely hope you are in a better place now x

@Pandimoanymum that’s so lovely, thanks for sharing.
Another of Andy Williams songs - Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was our wedding dance song 🤭

Breathing by Kate Bush takes me back to being 17 and summer with the wind blowing the net curtains. It was 1997 and my friends mum was crazy about Kate Bush and used to play her album the whole story loud and often.

"If you Leave me now" by Chicago.

I was casually dating this guy who I fancied like mad. (We both worked together in a bar as a second job for both of us. He was a doorman.)
He was absolutely gorgeous and every female fancied him so I was more than chuffed when he asked me out. This song was played constantly everywhere - late 70's.

However, I decided to play it cool and kept him pretty much at a distance but he kept coming back and we dated one or two nights a week for months. He always paid too! 😁

I finally decided to give him the heave ho as I was worried about falling too deep and didn't want to get hurt. He was surprisingly gutted and I had to make up some excuse as to why I wouldn't date him any more. I could have been so wrong but thankfully met my now DH 5 months later.😄

That's on one of my most played playlists on Spotify, I listen to it often! It's a good summery happy song..shubba!

Rocking all over the World by Status Quo..my first school disco. I wore a Orange velour dress with a matching Alice band. I was 11.

One Of These Nights by Eagles. Played on a juke box in a crappy pub in Bootle in 1995 - made me fall in love with a guy who went on to become my partner for eight years. The opening bars still give me goosebumps 😞

I had a really weird experience a few weeks ago. I was resting on the bed in the spare room, which is downstairs (this makes a difference- my childhood bedroom was downstairs too). The sun was coming in through the window, and my eyes were closed.

The song, Stumbling In, by Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman (I looked it up) came on the radio, and I was transported back to my childhood home. As I lay there, I pictured my room; the garden; going through the gate (the picture in my mind was so vivid, even down to the sound the latch made. It was pre- extension- the house I’ve remembered for years is post extension. I could sense Mum being there- she died 6 years ago.

I felt really happy, it was the closest thing to bliss I’ve ever felt; cocooned in my childhood. All brought back by a song I can’t even remember much.

Song played on repeat coming through the wall reminds me of The Smiths, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now. When we bought our first house we soon realised that the teenage daughter of the family next door was clearly a big Smiths fan and that seemed to be her favourite. We were not big Smiths fans, but it could have been a lot worse, I suppose!