The first time you heard that song

We’ve all had the experience: A song comes on the radio that you’ve never heard before. And from that very first listen, you know. This is a song that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Later, you find that remember where you were when you first heard it.

I was hanging out with some friends this evening, and I raised this topic. Sure enough, everyone had their own personal list of songs. The ones that flew into their soul the very first time they heard it, and never left.

For me it’s a pretty eclectic list. They are songs from different eras, in wildly different genres: Billie Jean, Heart of Glass, Blues in the Night, Walk on the Wild Side, Bad Romance, Pirate Jenny, Don’t Think Twice it’s All Right, to name a few.

In some cases it’s only a particular version of a song. The very first time I heard Venus by Shocking Blue it became one of those songs. But the remake by Bananarama does nothing for me.

Then there are the songs that go even deeper, that end up shaping your very sense of who you are. When I was a teenager I heard Suzanne for the first time. It took only one listening. Leonard Cohen has pretty much owned my soul ever since.

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