When music moves you.

In the tail end of the 15th Century Glen Marshall tagged me in a music meme. The idea is to talk about some of the moments where music has entirely captured you rather than just talking about stuff you like or listen to a lot.

I would die for music, and i feel like i might die without it - though i'm entirely without musical ability - which is why i'm surprised at how difficult i've found this exercise. Is it fair for me to say i don't think my parents have particularly good or broad taste in music? Well, either way, i've said it now. The stuff i remember being played around the house as a kid was worship stuff, Cliff Richard, Tina Turner's Private Dancer album (!! thanks for this, mum), Genesis' Invisible Touch album, The Hollies and Paul Simon's Graceland album (a much more sincere thanks for this!), there was Peter and The Wolf too. Dad played a lot of Country, but talked a lot about reggae. What i recall is (though i may be mistaken) that most of my exposure to music came from outside the home, and even then lots and lots of it was 'Christian music'. Most of which i don't count by virtue of how much it feels, and felt, like a pseudo-sanitised substitute, in the same way Canderel is.

The first live music i saw that wasn't Christian was one of my favourite groups, Jamiroquai, on the Synkronized tour at the NEC in June 99.I was nearly 20. I distinctly remember saying something out loud in disbelief at what was happening to me in the introduction to Soul Education.

A second Jamiroquai moment was on Monday 18th April 2005. In the January my grandad had died and upon returning home from his funeral i found out a friend had taken his own life, which also obviously had an enormous impact on my group of friends. I was training for the London Marathon at this point and even though running had become the most pointless of things in light of these events, the charity i was supporting was worthy of me running while suspending grief. Race day had brought a sense of closure to the whole thing and i felt freed to grieve. Travelling back up to Wakey on the Monday morning Jo Wiley had the first play of the first single, Feels Just Like It Should, from the new Jamiroquai album, Dynamite. It started just as i'd parked at a service station and i remember asking the question 'What the hell is going on with THIS?', i remember the sound of my car speakers begging for mercy, and i remember the feeling of a new beginning.

There was enormous joy at finding Free's Alright Now amongst my parent's records just at the time that Wrigley's advert was on telly. I sat at the turntable and played it over and over, loving it and wondering if my parents had been cool at some point.... Raise the parking rate...

Leonard Cohen. Glastonbury 2008. Pyramid stage. Sunset. Hallelujah.

The other of my favourite groups: Blur. Glastonbury 2009. Pyramid stage. Tender being sung back at Blur by an audience who refused to stop.

Dodging a meeting at Spring Harvest 1995 with 4 or 5 friends, was caught up with by a couple of youthworkers on the detached team. One of them had a guitar. He played High And Dry by Radiohead. All the muscles in my face must have appeared to vanish.

This experience warmed me up nicely for hearing Paranoid Android for the first time two years later on the school bus.

Aged 11, best friend Dan on a visit back home to South Wales during a stint living in Paisley, Glasgow. He plays me a song he's discovered - Candi Staton's You Got The Love. Dum Dum Der Dum-Dum. Church music is never the same for me after that.
Glasto 2008 the two of us watch her perform it live. (No Dan, to the best of my knowledge she's still not dead ;o))

Infant school assemblies could be moving, particularly the day we were taught Cum-Bay-Ah and told how it was a slave song.

In 1992 Fu-Schnickens proved once and for all that hip hop was indeed the greatest the moment Chip-Fu started rapping backwards on Movie Scene on the F.U. Don't Take It Personal album. My eyes shot out of my head, i shot out of my seat to try and catch them, then i screamed and laughed for around half an hour solid as we played it again and again.

Bohemian Rhapsody, Roni Size's Brown Paper Bag, Dylan's fury in Hurricane, Arrested Development's friend Mr.Wendal, Stevie Wonder - As, Bob Marley shooting the sheriff.
And the rest.

So, music, it's all love, and so i feel bad for the rest of the moments for bringing these ones to the fore, but here's some particular instances of time, place, music and me converging into a blur.

Thanks for the tag Glen. Sorry 'bout the bad press mum. Love you x