Billy Bragg - A New England



It's a typical teenage angsty story, just splitting up with your girlfriend and then refusing to do anything at all. I just sat in my house for ages, stewing over things, generally making myself look a bit of a twat to everyone around me. A lovelorn embarassment that, in a group of hardfaced lads like my friends, ends up the subject of ridicule... particularly bad times.

So I just sat in, in my room, watching jurassic park 3 and surviving on pasta, when someone sent me this song... to be honest I'm not sure whether they were taking the piss or what because it was a very apt choice of song to send me at that particular time. But, yknow, whether they were being sarcastic bastards or not, they helped to drag me through that ridiculous time looking like a credible human being. 'I love the words you wrote to me, but that was bloody yesterday' yeah, that's right Bill, you tell the bitch. They've gotta be writing to us everyday for us to think they still give a **** about us, otherwise we're just gonna sit in our rooms shovelling carbohydrates down our throats and crying to the sound of an allasaurus tearing someone in half.

Ridiculous thing, this teenage love thing is. Ta for that one, Bill.

Kid Cudi (Crookers Mix) - Day n Nite

Velvet Underground - Who Loves The Sun



I went through a pile of my Mom's tapes this one day when I was young, about 10/11 years old or something, and just kept cycling through the tracks on my little tape recorder in my room. Eventually, I got to this song, and was caught up in the melody and just had it on repeat for ages, not bothering to ask who it was by or anything, but just listening.

So then, come a few years later, I'm about 14, and stumble upon it again via the power of the internet. I check out the band name - Velvet Underground. At this period of time all I ever did was buy CD's, absolutely any CD's, so I went out and bought Velvet Underground & Nico, expecting the same sort of happy shiny pop from them.

Well, I was completely wrong, but nevertheless I was blown away. I was completely surprised that a band could make such hard-faced and unforgiving music and coat it with amazing lyrics about things I'd never even thought of before. At 14, the seedy underbelly of life is not completely apparent to you, but ****ing hell Velvet Underground showed me it all.

I now have the complete collection.

Originally Posted by WolfAtTheDoor Velvet Underground - Who Loves The Sun

Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl



Back when my Mom and Dad split up, I was about 7 years old, they didn't tell me straight away and left me thinking that they were still together, until they felt I was ready for the news. So, they both used to claim that my Dad was working away, and that he could come and pick me up of a wednesday and take me to school, and then spend a couple of days with me on the weekend.

He used to pick me up of a Sunday morning, and as he had no actual place to go to because he was now without a home (he was crashing at all sorts of different peoples houses I think), he used to take me to church, to avoid my inevitable questionning of why the **** we couldn't just stay at home. "We can't stay at home because we've got to go to church."

So, we'd go to Church, accompanied by my Nan and Grandad, and it was an experience I inexplicably enjoyed because of two reasons - the first being that I always seemed to bring home a new videogame for my troubles, the most memorable of which was Worms, which I got so excited about that I actually used the cartridge in the church and pretended it was a gun. Which, looking back on it, probably wasn't the most respectable game to play in the middle of a place of worship. But the second reason was that in his car, my Dad only had one tape, and that was 'Brown Eyed Girl' by Van Morrison. I absolutely loved that song, and I can't think of any other song that can perfectly display an image of a sunny Sunday afternoon with the family.

From then on, it not only soundtracked the trips to the Church, it soundtracked everything I did with my Dad for that year, purely because he never seemed to buy any sort of new music. It soundtracked the time we went and caught dragonflies in the waterpark, the time we went to alton towers together.

Sha la la la la la la la la la la tee dah. And there's my childhood.

I bought the Blur Greatest Hits compilation when I was about 14 from Sainsburys for a fiver, after hearing so much about their impact on the music tastes of my generation, and British culture in general. Obviously, after putting the album in my stereo, I instantly recognised songs like Song 2 and Country House from their seemingly neverending radio airplay, and quickly decided that I loved the band quite a bit (being 14, I could get away with liking shameless pop hits).

I remember always skipping past the likes of 'To The End' and 'No Distance Left To Run', purely because they didn't seem fun and had nothing to say to me at that particular time in my life. I just wanted the funny mockney man to say WooHoo.

But, as I grew up, I invested in what many claim are Blur's two finest albums - Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife. I was going through a period of time where I was just spending all of my money on nothing else but CDs, but then not really listening to them and just leaving them on the floor in my room, so both of the CDs just lay around gathering dust.

Then I went on a typical British family holiday for a couple of weeks, stole my Nan's portable stereo from her and just played my CD's on repeat in the caravan. I popped Parklife in and skipped past the songs I had now become bored of, until fate lead me to 'To The End'.

It is, without a doubt in my mind, the best thing Blur have ever created. Nothing spoke to my coming-of-age like the words 'all those dirty words, they make us look so dumb'. It was just like yeah, I understand this now, I get this. It's amazing how one song can show you how much you've changed as a person. This sort of the thing is the reason why music inspires so much within our world. Because it can make the cogs work in a 16 year old lads head better than any ****ty holiday to Weymouth ever could.

Y'know that one song that seems to follow you through everything? This is mine. It got me through those stressful angsty teenager breakups, then became the perfect soundtrack to drunken teenage sexploits. And now, it just goes hand in hand with my feelings for my current girlfriend.

If I ever get big and rich and famous off the back of music, then I'm going to dedicate at 10% of it to this song. And considering it's only one song, that's a pretty grand statement.

Urb's RYM Stuff

Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.