Songs That Changed My Life

I just turned 41 a few days ago and so I took some time out to reflect on my life. I started to ask myself questions that I probably should have asked myself a year ago, when I turned 40. Heck, who cares? So I started to think about things that make me feel good, happy and satisfied. Obviously, there's girls and sex. But to me, like any other regular Joe, both are not readily available just like that (wish I was Robbie, or Justin or... no, actually, I don't) and since I'm not in a relationship right now... well, you know what I mean. Therefore I started to think about other things that have had an influence in my life over the years. Music, is just one such thing. Having worked as a radio broadcaster for a long time, music always has played a major role in my life. Today, I present to you songs that really hit me like an asteroid and influenced me and shaped who I am now. Hope you like them.

1. Queen / Radio Gaga

When Queen's Radio Gaga was released in 1984, I was just 12 years old. I already was in love with radio and was starting to fool around with a cheap double deck cassette recorder (kids ages 25 and younger might have to look that one up) and producing my very simplistic own radio ahows. The song was playing on heavy rotation on every station in town and by the time my parents and me hit Spain during our summer vacation, I knew I had to have that record. In a gas station, literally in the middle of nowhere, I don't even remenber where it was, I stared at a rotating cassette display which featured the latest hit records, among them in between El Fari, Julio Iglesias, Manolo Escobar and other assorted spanish stars I found it, Queen's The Works. Almost thirty years later, I still hold on to that one cassette which had such a great influence on me. Wonder what would have become of me, if instead I'd listened to someone else back then.

Radio Gaga ist just one of some amazing and mind blowing songs on that album, but it's the song that best captures my love for radio as a communications medium. The first line of the song says it all. Remember, I was 12 at the time:

I'd sit alone and watch your light
My only friend through teenage nights
And everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio
Radio

Here you go. Enjoy it:

Queen / Radio Gaga