Soundtracks Of My Life

That advert on the television which claims that 'music is the soundtrack to your life' is spot on. There are countless songs out there that evoke memories of my childhood and beyond.

I've decided to list a few tracks that could be classed as soundtrakcs to my life even though I know there are a libraries worth of tunes out there.

Culture Club - Karma Chameleon

This was the first record I can remember having. I must have been three or four and we were staying at a Pontins holiday camp somewhere in England and there wa s a picture of Boy George in the paper and I remember my mother and I having this argument about whether he was a girl or a boy. She was telling me he was a male but I wasn't convinced. Then when we were in the car this song came on the radio and my mother told me it was him singing. I don't remember anything else but when we got back to Cardiff they ended up buying the vinyl for me. So this was my first record!

Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time Of My Life

This one reminds me of my holidays in Germany. As my relatives lived in air force housing they didn't have much to watch on television so my Uncle Dennis would rent videos from the base and copy them to blank tapes. One of the videos was Dirty Dancing. I never saw it myself but I remember my other family members watching it quite a lot and this song being on the soundtrack. It was also big in the charts over in the UK when I got home and it reminded me of Germany in a way that made me upset because I wanted to go back. I hear this song now and again and it brings back a lot of happy memories of those holidays in '87 and '88. I really did have the time of my life.

Partners In Kryme - Turtle Power

If you were a child in Great Britain in 1990 then you had to have been a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle fan. If you were a child growing up in the USA then you had to have been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan. Thank the BBC for the name change!
I was one of their biggest fans and in the summer of 1990 the theme tune to the movie was released. On the last day of primary school one of my friends gave me a copy of it on tape and we spent the day listening to it on a portable stereo somebody brought in as it was one of those days where you could bring your own toys. I remember coming home from school that day and was meant to have got washed and dressed ready to be picked up by my cousins to go and stay with them in Newquay. I ended up running late after playing the tape non-stop.

Derringer - Real American

The entrance tune to Hulk Hogan. The song may be the most iconic theme tune in professional wrestling but it brings back plenty of memories of being a Hulkamaniac.

Roger Daltrey - Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

I had the hots for a girl called Kate who was in my registration class. During the Christmas disco at a youth club I used to go to I plucked up enough courage to ask her for a dance and this was the song that we danced to.

Shawn Michaels - Sexy Boy

This song represents my teenage years as a wrestling fan. I feel like I grew up with his career as Michaels first started using this theme in 1992 until this present day. It's cheesey but it reminds me of some great wrestling matches. It also reminds me of the day I met him for the second time in 2004 as it was being played on a loop during the autograph session. Meeting him that second time was like a comeback of sorts for both of us. He had been two years into a return after a forced retirement following a four year absence due to back injuries. I had my own problems to overcome so in a way if you had asked me a few years earlier I would have doubted that such a moment would happen.

En Vogue - Don't Let Go

This was Sarah's favourite song. I didn't care much for it then but a few years after we broke up I downloaded it. I still don't really care much for it but she was an important part of my life so it deserves a place in this selection. Every CD has a track that you skip, right?

d-Generation X theme

Another wrestling theme tune but when you grow up watching professional wrestling these things ahppen! This song reminds me of the best time in wrestling when Shawn Michaels and his backstage friend Triple H formed an on-camera duo. It reminded Miguel and I so much of ourselves that this song brings back memories of not only DX's antics but of some crazy parties me and Miguel should have been too drunk to remember.

Perry Como - Magic Moments

This one was a hard one to pick. Go back and look at the post from February 14th and you'll know who I am on about. It was a hard choice because there are so many songs that could be picked but if I had to pick one it would be this. I know this one would probably remind her of me as there was this one night when I played music to her and this was one of the tunes. The next day she heard the song again and she texted me and told me that she heard it and it reminded her of me. So, this has to be the one to exemplify that moment.

U2 - Beautiful Day

It wouldn't be a blog update without a gambling story would it? Well, this song reminds me of Triple H who had suffered a serious quad injury in the early summer of 2001. He was meant to have been in contention to win the world championship at the Summerslam of that year but things were put on hold unril he rehabbed the injury. In the early autumn William Hill started taking bets on who would win the Royal Rumble in January 2002. Knowing that the winner of the Rumble gets a title shot at Wrestlemania and that HHH was engaged to Stephanie McMahon I figured that it would be him winning the thirty-man event. But he had still yet to return. I made the gamble and placed £100 on him to win. It was the first big bet of my life and I sat back from that August day and waited for Hunter to return. His rehab video that aired on WWE television in late 2001 had the U2 song playing as the soundtrack. He returned to WWE Raw a week before the event and then won it netting me £450.

Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky

During the time that my uncle passed away there was an album out filled with one hit wonders. The night before his funeral I was nervous and upset and I tuned the James Whale radio show on. One of his listeners had sent in the CD and one of the songs played was this one. I then went to sleep and woke up early. I turned on the radio again and they were replaying the best bits of James Whale's show and the bit where he played this song came on again. So I heard it two times in a row and more or less laughed it off as my Uncle playing tricks on me from above. Things were even more surreal as - whilst on the journey to Swansea for his cremation - I was listening to my Father's favourite station and the song turned up there as well! Now once was okay, twice was coincidence but three times!? I haven't heard it as much since that day it is the kind of song that I look back with contrasting emotions. It reminds me of the bad times from that period but it also makes me smile when I think that the coincidence may have been a sign.