A Life More Ordinary

We’ve all got them, haven’t we? Songs that we really love to sing along to while driving in our cars or songs that mark individual moments in our lives. I’ve got a whole library full of those, multiple compilation tapes in old money. A whole archive of lyrics and tunes that stir these inept, clumsy feet when nobody’s looking or lift this tired, old heart, teasing out memories, both good and bad for me to soak in.

But what about the songs that undeniably made you who you are today? I’ve been thinking about this ever since I decided to try and pull this blog together. Which songs have provoked a change in me or had a profound impact on my life? So, here for your delectation or your indifference, in no particular order because that makes sense in my brain, are the songs that changed my life.

1 A New England – Kirsty MacColl.

No surprises that Kirsty MacColl made it into this list. This was her first hit single, an upbeat, pop version of Billy Bragg’s original song.

Despite having four sisters in my family, I was living in a household that was dominated by my father and all that that entailed. This song was a breath of fresh air in my life and was to have a huge effect on me in my future years. By now, at the age of eleven, many of the relationships in my life were damaged, more often than not by circumstances out of my control. To me, this song spoke of longing for simplicity and wanting to be loved but still being brave enough to make a stand when things were out of your control and making you unhappy. Despite Kirsty’s best efforts, it would take me a long time to learn that particular lesson, but because of this song, I was at least aware that it was an option. It would have been all too easy for me to have fallen into the trappings that were on offer at the time and blindly stumble through life. The words in this song gave me hope.

2 The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death – The Housemartins.

I grew up with Tory-voting parents. Stupidly, I wasn’t interested in politics until I left Plymouth, but once I had the freedom to start to experience and then question the world, this song really encapsulated some of my earliest memories. I have a vague recollection of the Royal Wedding in 1981, of street parties and tasteless cakes, bad haircuts and that favourite Muppets t-shirt of mine. I’d have been eight, too young to understand social injustice or the stark differences in class at the time, but still firmly entrenched in my working-class roots in a family that could afford very little. This song was to be my awakening and the start of my personal rebellion. What it also did for me, was to shock at least one of my parents and I still remember the look on my mother’s face, looking like a slapped arse, when she heard the chorus:

‘The people who grinned themselves to death

Smiled so much they failed to take a breath

And even when their kids were starving

They all thought the queen was charming’

So, I turned it up louder. I would argue that The Housemartins were way ahead of their time while also being incredibly relevant in the eighties. Maybe that says more about how little things have changed in our political system and the role of the press in society, something that they also addressed in the song ‘Freedom’ from the magnificent ‘London 0 Hull 4’ album. But the fact that so much of the music that they played would not be out of place in today’s climate speaks volumes and that trend has continued throughout Paul Heaton’s career, whether it be his observations on the ruling classes or his wisdom-laden musings about relationships and people. The most influential and important musician in my life. Long may that continue.

3 Being Boring – Pet Shop Boys.

So, having admitted to growing up in a Tory-voting household (which still doesn’t make any sense to me), it should be no surprise that there were also elements of racism, misogyny and homophobia dotted through my formative years, it was the eighties and nineties after all and it was there, up front and centre as they say, either in the form of ‘jokes’ or lofty sneers displaying a complete misunderstanding of anyone who dared to be different, whether through choice or circumstance. In hindsight, and through rose-tinted glasses, which believe me, are incredibly difficult for this writer to wear, I suspect that it was generational conditioning that was impossible to break free from (and I know that it shouldn’t be, please don’t think for one minute that I am defending such attitudes and viewpoints). On the other hand, there was a choice and one that still continues to this day, a ‘looking down the nose’ at certain types of people. This song and in particular the video, helped me take a huge step in breaking free from parental conditioning and beginning to understand and embrace cultural and sexual differences. Everything about this song is beautiful, lyrics teased from nostalgia it’s an easy listen yet it challenges you with so many thoughts. And to someone who has always considered themselves to be quite boring, it offered a different option, an escape. The hope of being who I wanted to be, rather than who I was being told that I should be. And even though it was a long time coming, I think that I got there in the end, partly because of this song:

‘Now I sit with different faces

In rented rooms and foreign places

All the people I was kissing

Some are here and some are missing

In the 1990s

I never dreamt that I would get to be

The creature that I always meant to be

But I thought in spite of dreams

You’d be sitting somewhere here with me’

4 Older – George Michael.

Another song that I didn’t discover until a little while after its release. Late 1990s following a long string of failed relationships and one failed marriage, I was still in that desperate rut where self-worth and believing in better had long since abandoned me. I’d been through traumatic break-ups in my later teen years before believing that I’d found ‘the one’ only to discover through a sense of abandonment and being taken for a ride, that she was ‘the one from hell’. When we separated in 1998, I was still ridiculously insecure, partly because of my upbringing but partly because I thought that I had found what I was looking for, what I needed and it was suddenly falling apart in front of me.

I went through that torturous stage of self-denial, where I was convinced that she would realise how much she loved me once she was without me, but little was I to know that she was already and had been for some time, in the arms and the bed of another. Then I found this song, long after the utterly brilliant Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 that had captivated me in 1990. Not only did the words tell me that I deserved better, but they also helped me to believe it as well. And this song has come with me, all the way through the rest of my life. Not that I harbour any feelings at all towards the person in question, but…but this matters in the same way that I have said ‘no more’ to the perpetrators of my childhood unhappiness. Because something good has happened to me. Several somethings good. And I am a better person for it.

Sometimes you can’t see the possibilities because of the darkness or the person that you are with. Sometimes you are so beaten, both physically and mentally, so broken that you don’t want to fight any more. And it’s easy for others to say that you can because they are just words. But when you are at rock bottom, and I think that I subconsciously took this approach, it can’t get any worse. It can get better, but it might be a long way off, so far off that what you are looking for doesn’t even exist yet because you don’t believe in it. Now, I sit and think about who I was then and who I am now.

Interestingly, even the opening line reflects the person I thought I was back then. ‘I should have known, it seemed too easy’ reinforces the belief that I wasn’t worthy of being loved, that I deserved no better and the Universe was just hammering home that fact by snatching my happiness away from me. Except it wasn’t the Universe, it was the actions of two selfish people with no regard for how I felt or the impact that their actions would have on my life. It’s so easy to lessen that impact by believing that it’s just ‘the way things are’ or that it’s ‘just my lot’. Actions have consequences.

Don’t you think I’m looking older? Yes, but also a little bit wiser.

5 Walking on The Milky Way – OMD.

This song taught me one important lesson, perhaps, given everything that had gone before, the most important lesson of all. It’s ok to look back and to enjoy nostalgia, for it to be a happy experience. So much of my life has been taken up by sadness, but I have the right to fight for the privilege to look back upon my days with a smile on my face and not have my memories dictated by those who hurt me or took what I should have had away from me. I should have had a ‘normal’ childhood and that was taken from me by the actions of others. I shouldn’t, at the age of 52, still wake up in the night feeling alone and afraid. I shouldn’t be fighting the battles that I continue to fight with my mental health. But I am. And actually, as long as I still have the choice to look back and find those few ‘sunshine days’ among the darkness then I know that I can still fight. As long as I know that I am making new memories and doing good things, then slowly, those moments are going to replace the bad stuff. I can remember who I am and where I’ve been precisely because I’ve come so far. Nothing can recreate my youth. But I can create my future while still remembering who I was.

‘As time goes by, reality

Destroys your hope and dignity

There’s nothing left but shadows on the wall

But just remember who you are

And where you’ve been you’ve come so far

And never ever let them see you fall

I don’t believe in miracles

I don’t believe in truth

I don’t believe that anything can recreate your youth’

6 When You Tell Me That You Love Me – Diana Ross.

Given everything that has gone before, this will probably seem like an unusual choice. Upon its release in 1991 (absolutely not the Westlife version), it completely passed me by if my memory serves me well. It missed the mark upon relationships well into the 2000s. Even when I heard it, I was never particularly enamoured of it. Until one moment, when my wife suggested that I listen to it not as a ‘traditional’ love song, but a song from a parent to a child. That simple suggestion changed this song totally for me. All of a sudden, it put all of my thoughts that I wanted to express about being a parent into words, someone else’s words admittedly, but words all the same. And as difficult as parenting gets, when my children tell me that they love me I do become a hero, capable of anything. I want to protect them from every single bad thing that has either ever happened or will ever happen, which of course is setting myself up for failure! But it ceases to be about whether or not you can actually achieve it because wanting to be that hero, wanting to be capable of anything is enough. Because all I ever wanted was someone who would want to do that for me.

I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere about my father once telling me that I loved my children too much and that one day they would break my heart. Even now, that makes me sad for him more than anything, that he was incapable of seeing past that irrational fear or belief. I know we’ve all got our demons to face, but he deprived himself of so much as a parent. And that was never going to be my way. I will continue to love my children so fiercely because that’s what they deserve. If I’m making up for something I never had it’s because I don’t want to make the same mistakes. Being a parent is a privilege, a joy and an honour and not something that I take for granted. And it’s not been easy at all, far from it. It will continue to be a difficult journey to share, but I’ve never understood people who think that they are absolved of parental responsibility once their offspring reach eighteen years old. Which brings me to my next song…

7 Soon You’ll Go – Howard Jones.

I first heard this song at a gig in 2017 in Hove. It was a very small, intimate gig where Howard talked about his music and played songs that he had chosen or that fans had requested prior to the gig. When I heard this song, I sat in a room with probably around 200 or so people and I cried. I cried so much because this was my next challenge, this will be my next challenge in life. It is both heartbreakingly sad but filled with so much love and hope, it gave me hope that I can face those moments when my children move on to greater things without being afraid. It gave me hope that I can see the happiness that awaits them and share that with them to take away my own fears and feelings of loss. Because I’m not losing anything, if I think about it, our lives are just transitioning, moving along to the next stage and the stage after that. I won’t stop being a parent, if anything I’ll be needed more! For advice, for moral support, for those 3am phone calls when their worlds are falling apart and they just need someone to listen or to come and get them when they feel so far away and bring them home. Home will always be home to them. As it should. Dad should always be Dad to them. As I should. ‘Soon you’ll go. Soon you’ll soar into the sky. And I’ll be there to watch you fly. Spread your wings. It’s your turn to fly’.

8 Prettiest Eyes – The Beautiful South.

In my humble opinion, the greatest love song ever written. From the opening line to the final note, not a single word or moment is wasted and it feels as though it takes you on a complete journey through life. I adore this song because it completely sums up what love should be about and the first chorus really tugs at the heartstrings:

‘Now you’re older and I look at your face

Every wrinkle is so easy to place

And I only write them down just in case

That you die

Take a look at these crows feet (just look)

Sitting on the prettiest eyes

60 25^th of Decembers

59 4^th of Julys

Not through the age or the failure, children

Not through the hate or despise

Take a good look at these crows feet

Sitting on the prettiest eyes’

The song tells of an innocence in the first verse before inferring hardship in verse two. Verse three drops in one of those tiny, seemingly insignificant moments that we often just sweep away and move past but can mean so much and it all builds to the tender, beautiful fourth verse that tenderly recreates intimacy and completeness. The second chorus swaps out the ‘not through the age or the failure, children, not through the hate or despise’, substituting in the poignant and touching ‘You can’t have too many good times, children, you can’t have too many lines’.

The final few lines see the subject imagining looking at his aged features, perhaps even bemoaning the onset of time a little, but any sadness is countered by the simple truth and ultimate compliment as they tell their paramour that ‘You’ll never hear the crack of a frown when you are here, you’ll never hear the crack of a frown’.

For me, this is what I imagined love would be like when I was a child. As I got older, I realised that it’s not necessarily about the things that we did when we were younger, although we are obviously an amalgamation of those moments. It’s more about what happens when we cross those thresholds from young to middle-aged or middle-aged to older. When we’re not so afraid of not finding love and we’re more afraid of having had love and losing it. We’re afraid of how we’d recover from that when we’re weighed down by our baggage of broken hearts and faded dreams, when we’ve fallen and the person who would have picked us up is no longer there.

Yes, love is about flowers and rings and moments. It’s about innocence and commitment and passion. It’s about choices and mistakes and compassion. And then one day, love is about holding them close, picking them up, showing them the light in the darkness. It’s about running your fingers through their grey hair and facing the unknown and loss. It’s about being afraid but trusting completely in your rock, your soft place to fall. This song tells you that in the most beautiful way.

9 Tear up this Town – Keane.

I love Keane. Sounds like a fairly obvious thing to say about a band that made a song on this list and to be fair, it could have been one of about ten songs that I put in here. Why this one? Well…

There are times when I feel like an outsider. Even in a room full of friends, I can sometimes feel like a stranger. That’s ok, it’s who I am and says far more about me than anyone else, but I think it stems from not being sure where I fit in. I’m easily…I was going to say irritated, but I think it’s more disappointed. There are some moments in conversations where I might disagree with something that’s been said and because I’m ‘all or nothing’ I tend to have two responses. Disagree (all) or stay silent (nothing). I’m not very good at the bit in between. I’ve tried fitting in, I really have.

Despite that, I recently came to a realisation as to why I feel like I don’t fit in. It’s because I don’t like the person that ‘fitting in’ makes me. I’ve spent so long fighting for what I believe in that I can’t relinquish that stubbornness, that defensive part of me that has kept me protected for so long. It’s my biggest fault but has also been my biggest strength when I’ve needed it. So I guess I’ll carry on not fitting in because it’s not who I am. I used to say that all I ever wanted was a quiet life, but I don’t think that you can be principled, true to your values and enjoy the life of Riley. Or maybe that’s just me.

I find friendships and relationships really difficult and taking the lyrics of this song at their most simple meaning, there are times when ‘I need a friend but a friend is so hard to find’. Maybe that’s not true, they’re not hard to find but they’re harder to understand. It also comes back there being (to quote another Keane song) ‘Something wrong about the way I feel’. Just like there are times when I don’t feel deserving of love, I don’t feel worthy of friendship. I convince myself that people don’t actually want to spend time with me, that I’m difficult and argumentative and they’d generally just be better off if I was quietly tucked out of the way. Which often prompts the other two responses mentioned in this song:

‘Some days I rage like a fire in the wilderness

Some days I only need the darkness and a place to rest’

The tension builds in the song, swelling from the gentle beginning to initial burst of energy leading into the first chorus, finally rising to a glorious crescendo throughout the second tearing up of the town. Another song of hope with a little bit of the rising of the underdog thrown in. It features in the film ‘A Monster Calls’, which somewhat ridiculously, I have yet to see. I must rectify that.

10 The Man in Black – Johnny Cash.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that we are always learning and always discovering new things. Growing up in Ideford, Johnny Cash (and in particular the album ‘At San Quentin’) was a staple part of my musical diet and likely influential in an appreciation of country music. Aside from the obvious ‘A Boy Named Sue’ and the eponymous ‘San Quentin’, I found a lot of fun in the quirkier, amusing songs such as ‘Starkville City Jail’ and ‘The One on the Right is on the Left’, a stark contrast to some of Cash’s more heartfelt offerings.

However, this particular song came to me just a few months ago (September 2025). I was driving up to Burton with Tris for an Argyle game and knowing that he also had a fondness for country music, I found a playlist on Spotify and hit play. When this song came on, I stopped my cheery (for once) warbling and listened carefully to the words. Cor, it didn’t half hit me. What a statement that seems even more poignant given the current political landscape, I can imagine it being denounced from the MAGA rooftops as ‘utter woke nonsense’. Seriously, if you’ve never heard it, give it a listen. My admiration for a man who had remotely serenaded me through the medium of vinyl and a rackety old record player skyrocketed. Sometimes, the songs of Johnny Cash can be a little too steeped in religion for me, not that I would begrudge anyone their beliefs, neither would I judge them on that basis. But that aside, often he would hit the nail on the head. While neither as vocally mellifluous as my other musical hero, Paul Heaton, nor perhaps as satirical in his musings, Cash was an absolute giant of his genre and turned his own pain into often underappreciated beauty. Would recommend to a friend, as the kids would say.

So, there you have it. Some people might call that therapy! It’s very personal of course, but I suspect that those who know me have come to expect that by now. Music can mean so much to so many people and I honestly believe that it does change lives. These ten songs absolutely changed mine.

Copyright Alec Hepburn, 2026.