Bryan Adams: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

Billy Maher on Radio Merseyside just played Katherine Jenkins' version of this song, which brought to mind a particular memory.

Growing up in Wales, as I did, we were required to learn Welsh until the end of year nine (aged 14). In year nine, we were taught Welsh by one Mr Aneurin Roberts, who spent most of his timetable teaching PE. So, because he was not a full-time member of the Welsh department, he was not afforded one of the nice classrooms. Instead, he had to teach most of his Welsh lessons in a dishevelled mobile classroom.

For that year, every Wednesday after morning break we would file into the dank surroundings; I would take my seat next to Hayley Leigh. Hayley was a sweet girl; attractive, outgoing and kind. She was a lovely friend to have.

There was only one problem: in every Welsh lesson in year nine, Hayley would start singing Everything I Do, usually without warning. I absolutely hated that song. It was the number one selling single in the UK for sixteen consecutive weeks of 1991; I was thoroughly sick of it by week three.

The last time I saw Hayley was in 1997, a few days after we had started sixth form. The course that Hayley had wanted to take was cut at the last minute due to lack of student numbers. So Hayley - and another friend, Saskia - left to attend the further education college in the next town. My last contact with her was in a 'phone call on my seventeenth birthday, all those years ago in 1997.

So although I hate the song with a passion, hearing it makes me think fondly of Hayley, and makes me wish I had been better at keeping in touch with people.

Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts

The first girl I ever fell in love with was Jenny Heywood. I was seven years old at the time.

Earlier that summer, our family had relocated to Sussex from north Wales. I was faced with the challenge of adjusting not only to a new village, but also a new school and new people. Not to mention the fact that the road signs were unilingual.

Jenny was in my class right through junior school. I took an instant shine to her; even then, I was able to recognise a very pretty girl when I saw one. However, like most seven-year-old boys, I was unable to adequately deal with all of these new feelings. I consequently kept most of them bottled up for years.

Jenny seemed to like me, though. One time, during one of Mrs Morice's lessons, she kissed me on the back of the neck. Just like that. Out of the blue. It had an impact on me; I can still remember the moment clear as day. Just as clear is the memory of how stunned and surprised I was. My face must have been a picture.

I recall that Jenny was a passionate supporter of animal welfare, and organised several petitions on such issues as the transportation of farm animals. I signed them; I doubt very much that I properly understood the issues, but I trusted Jenny and wanted to make her happy.

In our final year in junior school we fell out. I can't remember why, but I seem to recall I behaved pretty idiotically. We never made up. That summer, as we made the transition to secondary school, my Dad was transferred back north, and we returned to Wales.

I never saw her again.

So to the musical connection. During the late eighties, Neighbours-hysteria was hitting its peak. Jenny, like many girls at the time, had a crush on Jason Donovan. Even today, every time I hear Too Many Broken Hearts, I still spare a thought for the pretty girl with the hazelnut-coloured hair.

I wonder what she's up to now?

George Benson: Star Of A Story

The winter of 1996 was the last time I remember seeing really heavy snowfall.

I lived in Flintshire at the time, and can remember sitting up in my room one evening watching an enormous blizzard sweep across the farmland behind the house and envelop the village in a foot-and-a-half's depth of pristine whiteness.

It was also about the time that I started listening to jazz. The conduit was Jazz FM, a radio station that taught me that jazz was not just about tedious Dixieland bands and Frank Sinatra records. It also taught me that George Benson was actually one of the world's greatest guitarists and not, as might have been surmised from most of his output in the early eighties, a second-rate Luther Vandross wannabe.

I had bought a copy of Benson's 1980 album Give Me The Night, from which this track is taken, about a week before the snow hit. My abiding memory is of sitting and listening to this song as the snow banked up against the window.

It's funny how these little things seem to stick.

Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars

This song will forever remind me of two wonderful months, in which I learned an awful lot about myself and others.

In that time I was given a level of confidence that I never thought I would have. I was refreshed, renewed and renovated.

Although it all came to an end sooner than I wanted it to, I couldn't possibly be bitter or resentful. It was all too good for me to ever be ungrateful.

You gave me so much; thank you for everything.

Julio Iglesias: Begin the Beguine

This one takes me back to some of my earliest memories.

Iglesias' disco version of the Cole Porter classic was a massive international hit in 1981. At about that time, my Dad had moved us out to Nigeria to spend a few years as expatriates. I was a little over one year old at the time.

We were based out in Enugu, erstwhile capital of Anambra State. Apparently we lived in several houses over the few years of our African adventure, but only one sticks in my mind. I forget exactly where it was.

One of my most vivid memories is of being take around Ogbete market in Enugu. I remember it as a vast, swirling mass of humanity, assaulting my toddler senses from all angles. My Mum and I would occasionally be given free stuff by the traders, such is the hospitality and generosity of the Nigerians. I remember one time being led through the market, munching happily on a paper cone filled with peanuts; I cannot have been more than two years old.

I also remember sitting out in the front porch one afternoon - with my Richard Scarry book - and being scared witless by a group of local children running around the corner and shouting their heads off.

My parents had a Julio Iglesias cassette; Begin the Beguine is the only song that sticks in my memory. Apparently, at the time I was also in to Don Williams and Neil Diamond, as well as being a fan of the Kenny Everett Show on Radio 2 which we would tape on our brief visits to the UK.

Still, it hasn't done me any harm .

Has it?

Ronnie Laws: Every Generation

Making the adjustment to life at university was tough at first. I have never been the most outgoing of people to begin with, although I have improved with time. So, moving 250 miles across the country to an unfamiliar city filled with unfamiliar people was always going to be a challenge.

In short, I was homesick for the first half of my first term.

Gradually, as I began to make friends and settle in to the social scene in Exeter, I soon forgot about the whole homesickness thing. I came to view Exeter as my second home.

This presented its own problem: going home for Christmas. By that stage, I had become so used to uni life that part of me did not want to leave at all. On the one hand I was looking forward to returning to the familiarity of my family and homeland; on the other I was leaving behind my social circle, the only friends I had outside of my family.

I was torn.

At that time I had spent the best part of three years searching for a copy of the song Every Generation, which I had heard several times on Jazz FM (as was). The original album (also entitled Every Generation) had been out of print for some time. However, in November of 2000 - during my first term at Exeter - I found it. It was on one of HMV's budget compilations, which I purchased for the princely sum of £5.99.

It is a very reflective song, centred around the changes one experiences as one progresses through life. The lyrics immdediately struck a chord with me, given that I was embarking upon another stage of the great journey of life at the time.

I took the CD back to Flintshire with me over the Christmas break. As I reflected on the momentous changes I was going through, and all the fun and excitement that the next four years had in store, I'm not ashamed to say that I shed a tear or two that December when I listened to the song.

To this day I regard Every Generation as the signature tune of my life. It is also the direct inspiration for the title of my other blog.

Welcome...

Welcome to The Tracks Of My Years*.

For all of us there are pieces of music that have some special significance to our lives, no matter how small.

My aim with this blog is to share with you a few songs that stick in my mind, along with their particular circumstances.

(* With apologies to Ken Bruce)