There was a thing doing the rounds on Facebook a few
weeks back where people were being asked to name the top 10 albums of their
younger years, the premise being that the music of your youth has a far greater
sway over your musical preferences than anything you hear at a later date - which got me to thinking.
I don’t entirely agree with that view, but, before I get
into that, let’s start with my list of the 10 albums that, in my younger years, spent more time on my
Dansette than any other. In no particular order, they are:-
Who’s Next – The Who
Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Tom Petty & The
Heartbreakers
All Mod Cons – The Jam
Le Chat Bleu – Mink De Ville (a flawed but forgotten
classic – worth checking out!)
I Don’t Want To Go Home – Southside Johnny & The
Ashbury Jukes
Heat Treatment – Graham Parker & The Rumour
My Aim Is True – Elvis Costello
London Calling – The Clash
Colossal Youth – Young Marble Giants
Now, while it is true that I can, with suitable encouragement
in the form of an appropriate form of liquid refreshment, probably sing every
track on Born To Run and Who’s Next, in order, from start to finish (and this
from a man who has absolutely no memory for lyrics – despite having played “The
Weight” at most gigs with my band for the past 10 years, I can still only
remember the verse that I sing), I really can’t remember the last time that I
played any of the above in full. While they most definitely formed a part of my
personal musical heritage, I have no burning desire to go back and re-visit
them with the intensity and frequency that I used to. They are all most
certainly, very fine pieces of music (I will accept no dissent on that point!),
but they are more remembered with fondness than played with passion. So, while I get the "music of your youth is very influential" thing, I don't think that you are then incapable of being similarly affected by music you come across in your later years.
To illustrate that point, I now have another set of 10 albums that
I have discovered/re-discovered (some of them coming from a time before I
started listening to music avidly) in later years that are more of an influence
on my musical taste as the “teenage” list above. And these are:-
Mule Variations – Tom Waits
El Corazon – Steve Earle
Moondance – Van Morrison (way better than Astral Weeks –
the World’s Grumpiest Songwriter ™ will never write a better opening five
tracks to an album)
The Band – The Band (the motherlode of all Americana)
Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen
Time (The Revelator) – Gillian Welch
Heartbreaker – Ryan Adams
Anymore For Anymore – Ronnie Lane
Pretty World – Sam Baker
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road – Lucinda Williams
Interestingly, this second list does get played regularly
– nowadays, I will reach for Nebraska rather than Born To Run, Mule Variations
rather than London Calling, Anymore for Anymore rather than Who’s Next. And,
arguably, my musical taste (both what I listen to and what I play) is much closer
to my older self’s list than the music of my callow youth.
