Countdown To 40: A Song A Year - Teenage Wasteland

So the countdown to March 19th continues (one in the eye for all those who believe we'll have to wait till December 21st for the 2012 apocalypse) and I'm back to picking one song for every year of my life so far.

These were my choices from 1972 - 1982... and now, on with the show.

11 (1983) Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart

What!? I hear you scream. You chose this over A New England or any of the songs on your favourite Costello album, Punch The Clock? I know, it's shocking, isn't it? I was never a huge Yes fan but this one album - this one song - soundtracked so many of my teenage memories. It's partly that killer riff, partly the sentiment (I was that Owner Of A Lonely Heart), partly John Anderson's angelic vocals... and yeah, partly the Trevor Horn sheen. It's not one man and his guitar singing an out of tune song about how all the girls in his school were already pushing prams: it's impossible to compare the two. But it'd be a few more years before I fell for Billy Bragg. When I was 11, this rocked my world.

Speaking of which, Number One in the charts on my 11th birthday? Another Jim Steinman classic. Turn the pomp up to 11 with Total Eclipse Of The Heart. Brilliant.

12 (1984) Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days

This is where it starts to get difficult. Do I pick a song that would mean more to me in later life, something from The Smiths or Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole? Or do I go with my gut and settle for the one album that screams 1984 louder than anything else in my head? Not the best Bruce album, but certainly the most iconic. And when you're 12 and only just finding your pop feet, that's all you want.

Meanwhile, if I'm feeling old, I just need to look at Bruce Springsteen in this video. God, he looks about 12 - and yet, he'd been making records for well over a decade by the time he finally made the big time.

At number one on my final pre-teen birthday? Lionel Richie, Hello. At least it wasn't I Just Called To Say I Love You.

13 (1985) Huey Lewis & The News - The Power Of Love

Oh god, when will he get past his American rock phase, you're wondering? Not just yet. Huey Lewis was another of my teenage heroes, helped along by Michael J. Fox and his DeLorean. Yes, this was the year of How Soon Is Now, and if I'd opened my ears properly I might have realised Morrissey had written that song just for me. But despite my teenage moodiness, I had an optimistic spirit and Back To The Future was my teen movie. Well, that and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Huey and the gang made three great albums prior to this one... and never came close again. Maybe that's what sent my tastebuds off in other musical directions?

It could be worse. The Number One that marked my ascent to teenagerdom? Easy Lover by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.

14 (1986) The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Well, it couldn't really be anything else, could it? Even though I wouldn't properly appreciate this song for a good few years, it probably had a bigger impact on my life than any other record in my collection. It made me love The Smiths and forgive Morrissey anything. Back in '86, I was listening to far more Fore!, Graceland, Slippery When Wet and A Kind Of Magic. But The Queen Is Dead became my retrospective teenage anthem. It's hard to believe I didn't love it when it first came out.

By the way, if There Is A Light... hadn't been released in 1986, it wouldn't have been replaced by any of the records above. No, this year's runner up, and the song that most reminds me of teenage school discos, is Caravan Of Love by The Housemartins. Just in case you were wondering.

Number One as I turned 14? Chain Reaction by Diana Ross (with a little help from the Bee Gees.) Now that's what I call music.

15 (1987) Prince & Sheena Easton - U Got The Look

So many records say 1987 to me, yet it's hard to pick just one that stands out above the rest. Too much choice. My two favourite albums of the year are Tunnel Of Love and Strangeways, Here We Come yet neither produced a truly iconic single. I was tempted by Barcelona, Livin' On A Prayer or Sweet Child O' Mine, but while I don't rate Sign O' The Times the album as highly as many critics (though it's title track probably does say more about 1987 than most other songs released that year), this was the single that finally made me love the little purple freak.

My birthday Number One at 15? Everything I Own, a watered down cover version of an old reggae standard by a past-his-prime Boy George. Hardly one of the year's musical highlights.

16 (1988) Morrissey - Every Day Is Like Sunday

Damn it, I really wanted to give this one to Billy Bragg and Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards, but it doesn't quite compare to trudging slowly over wet sand back to the bench where your clothes were stolen. What does?

On the day I reached the age of consent (not that anyone would consent back for a good few years), the ironic Number One was I Should Be So Lucky by Kylie Minogue, a hideous slice of SAW-ed off landfill pop. And do you want to know something even worse? I actually bought the damn thing. I must have been desperate...

17 (1989) Del Amitri - Nothing Ever Happens

The late 80s were a dire time for music, though I still managed to find plenty to keep me going. As with the best of his songs, Justin Currie's debut hit combines apathy with misanthropy in a way few other artists could or would ever attempt. For 1989, it was this or I'll Sail This Ship Alone.

Meanwhile at Number One on March 19th, Madonna reached her artistic pinnacle with Like A Prayer. IMHO.

18 (1990) The Inspiral Carpets - This Is How It Feels To Be Lonely

This is how it feels to be 18. This, November Spawned A Monster and Birdhouse In Your Soul paint a curiously accurate picture of my last year of A Levels. Happy 18th!

Meanwhile, topping the charts on my birthday? Dub Be Good To Me by Beats International. I liked him in the Housemartins, I even dug Fatboy Slim, but this one wasn't a Norman conquest for me.

19 (1991) Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - The Fire Inside

An unusual choice for the year that brought us Smells Like Teen Spirit and Losing My Religion, but this has long been one of my favourite songs. Elvis Costello almost stole the year with The Other Side Of Summer, but in the end Bob is Number One with a Bullet Band.

And on my 19th birthday? The Stonk by Hale & Pace. Bloody hell.

20 (1992) Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch

I went with my gut on this one. Neither of the two albums Bruce released in 1992 are among anybody's favourites. There were far better records released this year - including Automatic For The People, It's A Shame About Ray and Generation Terrorists. But this track carries a kind of crushed yet hopeful romanticism that's always made it stand out for me. I guess it reminds me of being 20 more than any of the above.

My 20th Number One birthday song was Stay by Shakespeare's Sister. Morrissey gets the last word in as usual.

Back next week with the run-up to my 30th.

Justin Time

Twice now I've had tickets to see former Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie playing live in his new solo incarnation. Twice, despite the fact that he's written some of my favourite misanthropic songs of the last twenty years, I've had to give those tickets away... once because I'd just broken my arm, once because my back was so bad I couldn't stand up. (Back update - I still can't stand up for long, but using a combination of seated or partly-seated venues or painkillers/heated wraps, I'm not letting it spoil my appreciation of live music too much.)

Saturday night it was third time lucky, in my new favourite venue (and not just because it's a five minute drive over the hill), the Holmfirth Picturedrome. The last time I saw Currie live was back in 1998 when he was just a Drunk In A Band. The general consensus by all who attended that evening is that it's one of the most memorable gigs of our life. True, a certain amount of alcohol was consumed (those were the days, eh?), we were wild, we were free, we were still in our 20s... and Del Amitri looked like they'd last forever. And so would we.

In the cold light of 2011 then, when we're all starting to feel our age, there's no more Whiskey Remorse to be had (not for me, anyway), and JC's binned the band as part of "the new austerity"... how would the solo act compare with the hellraising days of old?

Well, it won't. They're two entirely different beasts. But while Wednesday October 28th, 1998, was exactly what a 26 year-old semi-alcoholic hedonist needed to blow his mind... Saturday January 22nd 2011 was much more in-keeping with the wants and needs of an occasionally morose teetotal 38 year-old. I don't care about getting old, as long as my favourite artists come with me.

The first time I heard the song below was in the early days of 1990. I was 18, hadn't yet touched a drop, and still believed my future involved spinning records and talking in between them for a living. How wrong can you be? Sitting there in the last free seat on the Picturedrome balcony, I wondered where I'd be in another ten of these increasingly fleeting years? As long as Justin Currie's still singing, it won't be too bad...

The Imaginary Gig

Thursday night, I went to an imaginary gig. Justin Currie is an artist I've been looking forward to seeing live (and solo) for a good few years now. I'd see him with his former band (the criminally underrated) Del Amitri back in the days of wonder, but missed the tour for his first excellent solo album, so was eager to catch him touring its sequel. We got the tickets well in advance and I was all set to go.

But I didn't. I couldn't. Because of my worsening back. I can't stand still for more than a few minutes at a time without absolute agony. I can sit down fine, I can walk about OK... but standing still is impossible. Unfortunately, at venues like Manchester Academy, standing still is your only option. So I had to tell Dave to find someone else to go with him... I just couldn't stand it.

Instead, I went to an imaginary gig. I built a stage in the living room and imagined a misanthropic, curmudgeonly, archly-cynical songwriter was up there singing his bitter heart out (to help me visualise this, I put a mirror at the back of the stage). Then I got Louise to push past me on her way to the toilets or the bar every two minutes, to have loud conversation with her friends just behind the sofa, to film the whole gig on her phone, and to whistle shriekily after every song.

Then I sat back and listened to the new Justin Currie album, The Great War. It was almost like being there. And as close as I'm going to get to gigging until my back is mended...

Never mind, there's always album #3.