I was recently asked by a work colleague why I liked "weird" music. I couldn't explain at the time, but after much thought I came up with this..............

I was born in 1976. I was oblivious to Punk and its diluted successors and found myself a couple of years shy of truly experiencing rave, shoe-gazing and Madchester. Not that age would have made any difference as I resided with my parents in a quiet little Leicestershire village, where you had to wait for an hourly, meandering bus service to take you into the city or nearby market town.

My early years were a flat-line in comparison to the pulsating scenes and movements I appear to have missed. However, I’ve never felt cheated or forgotten by musical happenings and history.

The advent of Britpop provided my first chance to belong. I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and immersed myself in all aspects of the ‘scene’. Dressed in the regulation Ben Sherman shirt, 512 Levi jeans and Adidas Samba’s, I took in the sights and sounds of Oasis, Black Grape, Cast et al; but something wasn’t right.

There I was in my early 20’s, listening to the musical outpourings of my generation and enjoying the excesses of a responsibility–free existence; yet I didn’t really get emotionally involved in the music. Showing an allegiance to the bands and music was merely a means to an ends; the ends being girls.

I’d grown up as most kids do listening to a blend of chart music and my parent’s record collection. The Bangles and Beats International mixed with Dire Straits and Fleetwood Mac. Out of this heady cocktail, rose Springsteen. My dad owned most of his albums up to Born In The USA, which meant Bruce was always on heavy rotation on my midi-system.

Even during the height of Cool Britannia’s swagger and front, I’d spend Friday nights being ”mad for it”, only to wake up the following afternoon hung over and still fully clothed to listen to Highway Patrolman or The River’s quieter tracks.

I’ve always known Springsteen’s music. It has always been there in the background during my life. I love it dearly, but I never made a conscious decision to like and listen to it. It simply became part of me.

There has only ever been one instance when I’ve heard an artist and became instantly hooked. In actual fact, it was almost as if the music decided to surround me and infiltrate my senses for the rest of my life. I can vividly remember the occasion, sat on the settee at my Aunt and Uncle’s house……

My parents, brother and I often made a short journey north on a Sunday for ‘jumpers for goal posts’ football with my cousins and a roast dinner of epic proportions.

I’d slumped onto the settee, exhausted after nearly three hours of end-to-end, two-a-side football when my dad and uncle returned from supping pints of ale at the local pub.

They drunkenly browsed the CD rack and suddenly, Dylan sprang out the speakers…….”Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam/And admit that the waters around you have grown”. At a volume that only a partially pissed uncle would select in order to prove “this is proper music, lad”, I sat open-mouthed and fixated, whilst my mother and aunt harmonised an instruction to “Turn it down!”.

Instantly, I knew this was the music that I would listen to for the rest of my life. The raw, stripped bare delivery went straight to my core. To this day my appreciation of a song is linked back to that moment – words and meaning a priority with the music a secondary concern.

As a result, my musical adventures have tended to head back in time and off into obscurity rather than follow Pops latest musical fad. As the mainstream crafting of songs has moved towards the benign and superficial, I’ve followed the signposts of liner notes, name checks, biographies and old interviews in order to discover new sounds and artists.

Over the years, I’ve tried to broaden my horizons and vow give anything at least one listen. Occasionally, this has paid off and I’ve discovered a new artist with a back catalogue worthy of investigation or an unknown band on the ascent. I remember one instance leading up to a birthday, when my brother asked what albums I’d like as a gift.

It was a period when I felt like a needed to discover some new music, so that evening in the local pub I asked my best mate to name two albums. Without hesitation he chirped up with Public Enemy’s Fear Of A Black Planet and Obscured By Clouds by Pink Floyd.

I’d be lying if I told you that I regularly listen to those albums now, but they do have a place in my affections along with Heartattack & Vine (suggested by an old school friend, but not actually purchased until some years later), JJ Cale’s Naturally (my A Level Design teacher recorded this onto cassette for me) and Graceland (it was played in the car on family outings for what seemed like decades) and they are still present in my treasured collection of music.

These approaches to musical enlightenment are still my preference. Over the years both friends and work colleagues have supplied a wide variety of artists and albums for my perusal and prayed I won’t return their offering with a fifteen minute synopsis as to why I won’t be investing any further energy into such rubbish.

So as I head off in search of additions to my life’s soundtrack, deep down I know I will return to Dylan and Springsteen. Albums from places and eras I never knew, yet they’ve resonated with me in my teens, twenties and now my thirties. I guess I’ll occasionally take a detour back to Definitely Maybe and Second Coming for nostalgia’s sake. However, it will be to evoke the memories of the nights out, not necessarily to enjoy the soundtrack.