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

@JadeSeahorse I bloody love that song (and all Chicago’s back catalogue really!)

@NormasArse Oooh that’s given me goosebumps, reading that. I am not familiar with that song. Off to YouTube it…

It must’ve been a hit in the 70s, and triggered the memories. It was magical.

Me too Chippy sauce!

I was a huge Chicago fan back in the day.

Hadn't thought about that time for ages then heard the song on the radio a couple of days ago and it took me right back to being 21 again.😄

'This Charming Man' its mid 80s, the rain is pounding the window, turning the council pebble dash grey. The record player is between my bed and my sister's. I'm watching the rain droplets on the pane thinking of a Hardy poem we read at school. I'm hiding from my father shouting downstairs, at my mother. The field outside is sodden.

Cliff Richard’s Wired For Sound. It was on the radio all the time when I was first pregnant with my eldest. I had awful morning sickness, now if I hear that song I immediately start to feel nauseous 😂

A New England by Kirsty MacColl. I am 14, the funfair has come to town and my best friend and I are singing along at the top of our voices on the waltzers, feeling ever so slightly naughty because there was a swear word in it.

Something About You - Level 42, 1985.

Favourite song at a time I realised I needed to dump fiancé after meeting (now) DH at work.

Back to life, the summer I graduated. I was 21 and gorgeous, it was a glorious summer, I was very happy

The Pet Shop Boys 'Love Comes Quickly' takes me right back to falling head over heels in love in my youth. It was a passionate and deeply romantic relationship for a couple of years but we weren't to last. My first real grown up love affair.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light, I was under age by quite a bit but it didn’t matter in the early 00s, I was in the beer garden of this pub where I lived called the Bridge one May BH belting it out having the time of my life with a vodka lime and lemonade in my hand.

Im a dreamer-can remember being on the waltzers at the travelling fair and it blasting out so loud I couldn’t hear myself think but was having the best time

Paradise by the dashboard light, Meatloaf. But really anything by him. Soundtrack to my first love.

However do you want me....1990?!

I Feel Love by Donna Summer - it was playing on the car , me and my fiance. Was madly in love with him and we were off for a weekend. We never did get married.

Skunk Anansie- hedonism summed up a period of big choices. Did wanting to do it make it the right thing? Thirty years later, it appears it was.

Rhianna Umbrella
Takes me back to an organised coach to Download festival 2007. We were travelling for 7 hours or so, and it came on the radio so often it became the theme song to our whole weekend 😄

Ignition by R Kelly. It was number one, it was hot, I was 17 and in love and having so much sex with the person that I thought was the love of my life and that I’d be with forever. I was getting pissed on alcohopops in the sunshine, splinters from a beer garden bench in my arse, that tune wafting on the breeze and a mix of my beau’s pheromones and his Jean Paul Gaultier Pour Homme in my nose. That song takes me right back.

Kiss Me by Tin Tin. My first party at 14/15 in a Community Centre, I wore a new pencil skirt and electric blue blouse and when this song came on, I thought it was the coolest song ever,

Mmmbop - Hanson , it’s summer, I’m in yr 9 and we are just hanging out at my friend Suzanne’s after school and it’s playing (on repeat) on The Box. I just feel really happy and grownup and excited about life, it was a summer of boys and carefree young teen life before everything got serious and shit.

The Cave by Mumford and Sons takes me back to happy, carefree days when my children were 8 and 6 and we sang along to it endlessly in the car. And my daughter (21 now) always has it on her playlist and we still sing along! And reminisce.

Each and Every one by Everything but the girl. I was waiting for my O level results in 1985 and was on holiday in Spain. It reminds me of mountains, blue skies and baked in heat. I had it on a cassette and we would play it by the pool every day. Eden is such a brilliant album.

Big Fun, by Inner City. I'm back walking the streets of SE15 in the height of summer (I also defy anyone to not hear "we're having meat balls").

Don't Speak, by No Doubt. French exchange - I'm back in France watching MTV.

Movies, by Alien Ant Farm. Getting ready to go to uni and feeling a shift between me and my then boyfriend. Can't listen to it without crying.

The soundtrack to my life is quite eclectic 😅

George McCrae, Rock your Baby. Summer holidays, played constantly at the disco where we were staying. Still makes my heart skip a beat.

It Wasn't Me Shaggy

Takes me back to 2000 in my first job after graduating (I was 28 by then so had a late start). Was in the alternative education room of the school I was placed in. Came on the radio and one of teenage girls started dancing and singing along. It was a sunny day and the windows were open. I remember feeling really lucky to be in a job I love (still do 25 years on).

Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel. It was the 70s and I was a student nurse at a London teaching hospital and this was constantly played in the hospital social club. I was loving life and having a great time. I hear it now and I’m instantly back there.

The Look of Love - ABC.
Released in 1982 but it reminds me of the Summer of 1983 when I was in lower 6th. The Upper 6th had left to do their A levels so we had the run of the 6th form block and one of my friends played this song non stop on the record player in the common room. It was one of the happiest times of my life, definitely the best term at school.