THE FIRST RECORD I BOUGHT
The first single I bought was Vic and Bob’s ‘I’m a Believer’… recorded with EMF I believe! It was a cassette in those little paper slips. Not sure why I bought it. I guess I liked the song – didn’t know at the time it was a cover of the Monkees classic – and also I was just becoming aware of Vic and Bob and thought they were funny, and pretty mental, which is something that appealed to me! The first album I bought was Bad by Michael Jackson, again on cassette. I remember saving up my bits of pocket money (the bits I didn’t spend on sweets!) and went out and bought it. I listened to it over and over. Loved it.
MY FIRST GIG
My first proper gig in a proper venue was Cast at Sheffield City Hall. Me and a group of mates from school all got tickets. As a huge fan of all things Britpop it was amazing. I’ll not tell you what happened in the melee and crush at the front barrier just before Cast came on, but let’s say I’d have a couple of cheeky beers and didn’t want to lose my spot!
THE FIRST SONG I PERFORMED
The first song I properly performed in public I think would have definitely been either an Oasis song or perhaps a Beatles song. I performed at a school Christmas assembly with a couple of mates in about Year 9 I think. I’m going to plump for ‘Wonderwall’.
A SONG I WISH I’D WRITTEN
‘Into My Arms’ by Nick Cave. It’s just such a beautiful song; the lyrics and pictures Nick paints with his words are just amazing and it’s so simple. I like the fact that it’s a proper love song but because it’s Nick Cave, it doesn’t really come across as one on first listen with his familiar vocal delivery. It’s a slightly leftfield love song, but one that tops the pile for me.
I FIRST FELL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC
Sitting in the back of the family car as a young kid driving away on summer holidays and listening to my mum’s old cassette version of the Beatles’ Red Album. I guess it was the first time there was a concentrated delivery of music in my life and those early Beatles songs, as well as being great, are very accessible to a young mind! It’s definitely where music became a thing to me and even if it was subconscious at the time, it most certainly planted the seed for later life and what I do now.
A SONG I CAN’T GET OUT OF MY HEAD AT THE MINUTE
There’s two answers to this question: the cool answer and the slightly less cool answer! My cool answer would be ‘Hope’ by Arlo Parks – just a beautiful song and a brilliant album. Perhaps the slightly more honest answer though is ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa! My eldest son Arlo absolutely loves it and plays it all the time so it’s definitely stuck in my head. It is a great pop tune though – so sorry, not sorry!
A RECORD WHICH REMINDS ME OF A SPECIFIC TIME AND PLACE
This has to be ‘On and On’ by Longpigs and their album The Sun Is Often Out. Again going back to the Britpop thing, but with Longpigs being a Sheffield band and the time it was released in 1995, I was definitely going through and experiencing a lot of the things you do at that age: finding ‘love’ for the first time, first heartbreaks and getting up to mischief. It definitely resonates with me to this day and I still can’t hear that song and indeed album without stopping in my tracks and feeling those same feelings. Amazing how music can do that to you!
Ed Cosens has announced his debut headline gig as a solo artist and plays Abbeydale Picture House in Sheffield on Friday 19th November. Tickets are on sale now and available here.
