On the songs that have shaped me

I was brainstorming for a pitch on our emotional relationship with music when I started thinking about the ways in which music has shaped me. If I had to write about a single song, what would that song be and why?

I am definitely one of those people whose quality of life and levels of joy would be reduced by at least 63% if music didn’t exist. I don’t turn on the speaker when I wake up (like my mother does) and if I go out on a walk more often I choose to listen to a podcast rather than a playlist. But every time I get in the car and my Spotify connects to the stereo, or I go to a bar and feel the music reverberating through me, it’s as if the saturation of oxygen in my blood increases and I come alive. Suddenly, my relationship qualms, intrusive thoughts, and identity crises take on a universal quality and are lightened by a sense of saudade and euphoric pathos.

I do believe that a person’s life can be told in songs. There is the song that made me feel understood by music for the first time – “Family Portrait” by Pink. There was the one that has without my consent planted the seeds of my obsessions with Latin music, an ostensible Mr .Perfect, my own rags to riches storyline – ­“Ain’t It Funny” by J.Lo. There’s the one that always had me glued to the screen, especially when Claudia Schiffer removed her netted-veil hat and Tim McInnerny spit out the pit of an olive – “Uptown Girl” by Westlife. There is the one that helped me make my first real friend by disclosing my passion for dancing – “Whenever, Wherever” by Shakira. There was the background soundtrack for the period of my teenage years when I felt pleasure in sinking deeper and deeper into self-induced sadness – Coldplay’s “The Scientist.”

“Dust in the Wind” by Kansas had me briefly entertain the idea of committing to a life of short nails but being able to strum a guitar on the windowsill of a brownstone. Nelly Furtado, sedulously, for years, tried to warn me that “All Good Things Come to an End,” but then she acquiesced. I wasn’t going to listen; I was “Like a Bird.”

“Sonnentanz” by Klangkarussell had me venture to perform my own choreography on a stage and express feelings that were too hard to put in words. There was the song that did (and still does) make me feel as close as I’ve been to feeling high on a night out – “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z. There is the one that nursed me through a broken heart – “Borrowers” by Mahalia.

There is the one that makes every cell of my body want to move furiously, that was also the WiFi password of my first rented flat in London – “Let’s Get Loud” by J.Lo. 

There is the song whose blue link arrived in my WhatsApp and made me realise I was in love again – “Make It With Chu” by Queens of the Stone Age.  And somehow in the background all these years, there’s always been “Parachute” by Cheryl Cole, whose Argentinian beat makes my heart pas de chat; especially when there’s a suitable object of affection to hold in mind while lip syncing. 

But the idea of a single favourite song feels like a third-grade slam-book question or something your eight-year old niece might demand of you. It’s so eager in its simplicity. And the part of us that believes we’re complex and our relationship to music as unique as our fingerprints gets a bit offended. And yet the prompt was clear: write about your favourite song.

And though browsing my Spotify felt like looking through an old album, neither of these songs was good enough for the ‘favourite song’ accolade. Perhaps because of the strong association with a past me, because of all the songs we’ve sacrificed by letting their chords entangle with a period of our lives we don’t wish to revisit (RIP).

The subjective litmus test that I came up with to discern the suitability of a song for this position is, ‘How many times can you play in the car without getting tired of it?’ or more accurately, without somebody else kicking you out and kindly asking you to take the bus instead. And though there were many contenders for that title too: Moby’s “Flower,” Simply Red’s “Stars,” I had a definitive answer. My favourite song, the one I’ve played the most on multiple road journeys, the one I am sure to play on even more, is “Supreme” by Robbie Williams. Apart from its aptness to road travel there are other reasons for my affinity to it. First of all, all the best songs ought to begin with a vinyl-crackling sound effect. Secondly, thanks to my father, the F1 backdrop in the videoclip rings home. There’s something about retro race-driving that’s so classy and aesthetically pleasing, it makes me wish I was born in the 1930s in the south of France. Robbie Williams knew that any song moves you closer to transcendence, if paired with a universal theme, moving objects and speed.

But mostly, I’d call it my favourite song because, every time I play it, I get goosebumps as I prepare to be lifted up to a place where I am unique, but also everyone; with my lonely heart and bags under my eyes; with my luck in the thralls of my misfortune; with a partner to abuse and to adore; with my good intentions drowned in stubborn habits – life an insufferable mess but the most beautiful one we’ve ever seen. Because everybody lives for love. Supreme.