Declarations of undying affection, comparisons to a summer’s day? Who needs ‘em! Our writers recall the offbeat songs that capture their hearts
By Easter 2004, I’d been in a relationship with my partner, Maria, for four months and I was just realising how deeply in love I was. We had become inseparable. A magazine sent me to the ATP festival at Pontins in Camber Sands to interview “the Beastie Boys of noise”, Wolf Eyes. The interview fell to pieces when the band, in a state of great psychic refreshment, all wearing Manowar T-shirts, refused to stop watching a Manowar DVD and signalled they would only answer questions if they related to Manowar.
The rest of the day was exemplary – one of the best ever – walking on the beach, visiting record shops, watching the most incredible music curated by Sonic Youth. When Maria and I got back to our B&B room that evening, I fired up the CD player, which contained a pre-release copy of the new Wolf Eyes album, Burned Mind, containing the single Stabbed in the Face. But now its howling feedback and tinnitus machine noise sounded like a celebratory, ecstatic, love-filled symphony. People might think we’re being juvenile by saying Stabbed in the Face is our song, but it is the soundtrack of an incredibly joyous, optimistic time. We don’t listen to it that often now, though; our 14-year-old son says it upsets the dog. John Doran
