Music and memories

I’m late to pretty much every party. One party I was particularly late to was watching Derry Girls. I was aware of it, but somehow I only started watching it a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, I loved it. One particular bonus was the 90s music soundtrack. There were so many memorable songs from my teens. When I looked on Spotify, someone had kindly created a playlist of every song featured on Derry Girls. It was 14 hours long!

And it was absolutely joyful.

There were songs I’d loved, songs I’d disliked and songs I’d completely forgotten.

The 90s is my favourite era for music. But my music is mainly late 90s music from after I’d graduated – Britpop and pop like Spice Girls, Five and Steps. The Derry Girls soundtrack is more early to mid-90s – my sixth form and university days. Songs I’d jumped around to at Rock City (including Jump Around by House of Pain, of course) or cringed at in the university coffee shop. Songs played on repeat on Trent FM or that I’d heard working in the kitchen at McDonald’s at 6am.

Strangely, it was some of the songs I hadn’t liked as much that I found most joyful – things like No Limit from 2 Unlimited, which I remember finding very amusing when I was a student.

And the music triggered memories I’d entirely forgotten.

Hearing Young at Heart by The Bluebells, I knew with absolute certainty I’d heard it when I went clubbing in Manchester with my best friend from uni. I’d completely forgotten that I’d been to stay with her family for a couple of days in the Easter holidays.

And then I heard Place Your Hands by Reef, which brought back a whole load of memories of my time living in London. It started with a girl called Laura. I remembered I’d made a comment about Place Your Hands to her (it was probably on TFI Friday on the TV at the time), which she’d found disproportionately funny.

I’d forgotten all about Laura. She was my age and I think we could have been good friends. But she’d moved into my shared house in Shepherd’s Bush only about six weeks before I moved out. I already knew I was leaving, so didn’t see much point in making new friends. But I remembered I’d gone to the Monet Water Lilies exhibition with her at (I think) the Royal Academy, after a friend of hers dropped out.

Then I remembered all my other flatmates. It wasn’t a happy place or time for me.

I lived in a ground floor flat of a mansion block for 18 months. I’d beaten several people to get the room. I’d been ‘interviewed’ by one of my flatmates – a South African bloke who was 29. I was 24 at the time. He was really friendly when I first moved in.

So was the English bloke who was also 29. The Australian woman who was 35 was less friendly. Her partner, who was Irish, in his 40s and usually drunk, informally lived in her room – the one next to mine. He had his own flat and felt guity about squatting in hers, so he kept out of our way. I found this a bit scary. I literally saw him twice the whole time I lived there. I would rather have known who was in the room next to mine.

I lived there happily for a couple of months. Then the South African guy turned on me. He was cross with me for being ‘noisy’. Apparently I slammed the door when I went out running in the morning and my music was too loud. I used to put my music on every time I walked into my room, even if I was in there for only 30 seconds. Then I turned it off when I left the room. My room didn’t even have a proper door. It had one of those slatted cupboard doors and a curtain! So no wonder they could hear my music.

Personally, and I put this theory to the nicer bloke when we went out for a drink once, I think the South African bloke fancied me, which is why he chose me for the room. He was one of those blokes who really liked women, but never seemed to be able to find himself a girlfriend. I was already in a stable relationship with the man who would become my husband and had zero interest in him. So he went off me and decided to make my life unhappy.

I carried on running and playing my music and eventually the South African bloke moved out and Kelvin moved in. I’d forgotten all about Kelvin too, until I heard that bit of music. He was another person I could have been friends with, but I’d already had enough of living there and was just waiting to leave.

Then the Aussie woman and her drunk partner moved out and Laura moved in.

All of those memories from one piece of music!

Music really is very powerful.