Catching up on forty years. 1979: Breakfast in America – Supertramp

Breakfast in America comes around again…just off to Texas, where everyone’s a millionaire.

Catching up on forty years. 1978: Teenage kicks – The Undertones

The music of the Undertones is bang on message – full of that teenage insecurity. Just over two minutes of perfect imperfection, with the perfect lyric “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat” which is, of course, engraved on John Peel’s gravestone and briefly on a Belfast flyover.

Catching up on forty years. 1977: Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac

My fave track of Rumours is Go Your Own Way, not so much for the lyrics but for one of the best bits of drum thumping you’ll ever hear. Remember, a pre-teen boy won’t give a hoot about all this lovey-dovey stuff but some decent drumming and air guitar and the song is his.

Catching up on forty years. 1976: Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen

We jacked up the volume. I felt so grown-up. We’d got to my favourite bit
“I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango”

Catching up on forty years. 1975: Space Oddity – David Bowie

I paid attention to this slightly weird man on our black and white television who sang of Major Tom, and being stranded and floating away and space flight. Imagine if I’d seen him in colour.

Catching up on forty years. 1974: Remember You’re a Womble – The Wombles

I confess this was the first single that I ever bought and therefore, I guess, has to be very important…From a time when there was that iconic slot in the TV schedule that adults and children converged on, just before the news and after all the other kid’s stuff.

Catching up on forty years. 1973: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John

We start with 1973. As a 9 year old my music is picked up mainly from Radio One…

Living with…Peter Gabriel (and friends)…for a week

Me and Peter down by the schoolyard – he encouraged me to look beyond the fence

Countdown No 12: Breakfast in America

Top of my Desert Islands goody bag and long journeys playlists…