There is so much music everywhere these days. Everybody has a car radio, elevator music is filling shopping malls, MTV and VH1 are attacking us from every corner and we walk down the streets with white iPod earplugs stuck to our heads. More than enough, one might say, sometimes it’s just great to enjoy the silence.

But however, after all that noise, can one recall a certain tune or song that was a very first one? The one that got into one’s mind at a very early age and can’t get out since? And if one’s got a tune like that, does it say anything about him or her? Does it alter lives?

I have a song that I happen to remember since before I started going to school. I guess I must have been about five, hardly more than that. A cousin of mine who is eight years older already started being interested in girls and therefore in music, too. It was early eighties so he would listen to anything from Duran Duran to Europe but for that summer night at my grandparents house he brought around a blue tape that looked quite old.

That music didn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before. It sounded a bit transcendent and mysterious. It sounded complete, it wasn’t missing a bit, I knew it was perfect from the very beginning. And yet, it made me want to hear it over and over again. To these days.

That album I remember from the Palaeolithic of my life. You probably wouldn’t guess which one it was, though I suspect you’d be able to come close knowing me. It was Meddle. And the funny, upbeat tune I recognize as the first? There is only one like that there. If you don’t know, get Wikipedia to help you.