Last Christmas I wrote about the Tory lead Government’s plans to attack the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, cutting benefits, cutting wages and cutting worker’s rights. In the news as this year closes we hear about dead icons, football managers being fired, celebrity chef’s allegedly taking drugs and former X factor winners sleeping with teenage girls..  so while deciding what I should write about I read a blog by a colleague of mine about music. He said that I wouldn’t like it because I wouldn’t know the song. He was right, I didn’t know the song (she’s your lover now), but it made me wonder what it is about a song that touches some people so profoundly.

There have been thousands of books about a million pop stars; there have been endless quotes about music, from Shakespeare to Marley. The late reggae legend is credited with saying “the good thing about music is when it hits you, you feel no pain”. Oh contraire!

The beauty of a great song is that you feel all of the artist’s pain.

I have read many other quotes about music such as Plato’s “music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything”, and Charles Darwin’s “if I had my life to live over again I would (read some poetry and) listen to some music at least every week”, and then are simpler less deep quotes such as Bob Dylan’s “play it fucking loud!”

I think someone also once said that music is the soundtrack to your life. As clichéd as that is, it is for me the truest of remarks. Whether it be the song which topped the charts when your first born arrived or even the song you played while your first born was conceived, music has the ability to ignite and remind the most vivid memories. People spend months deliberating over what should be the first song they dance to as a married couple at their ceremony, and some spend years considering what should be played as they leave this earth. My choice by the way, on our wedding day was Jeff Heeley Band’s Angel Eyes, although the sentiment in John Miles’ Music (was my first love and it will be my last) was extremely tempting.. I am yet to decide on my swan song.

You can choose music to suit your mood and you can choose music to set the mood. There are songs that are generally accepted as great, such as Queens classic Bohemian Rhapsody, which always seems to top polls when voters are asked to name the best song ever. There are also multi-million sellers that are absolute drivel, but somehow manage to capture the imagination of consumers and listeners such as Joe Dolce’s Shaddup your face, which for some reason kept Ultravox from the number one spot, despite Vienna being a more obvious choice.

Some people look for sublime crescendos, while others associate with lyrics and others just like the beat. Whatever your taste, there is something for just about everybody.

Some people will be influenced by the music their parents listened to. As a child in the seventies, our home was full of 1960’s classics and later with 70’s country rock like The Eagles and Jackson Brown and Bad Company, with a helping of Charlie Rich and Cliff Richard. I certainly blame/ thank my parents for my random tastes in music. I can happily listen to Elvis Presley, the second highest selling artist of all time, yet just as easily sing along to Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achey Breaky Heart. There are times I like to listen to sombre music from bands like The Smiths and there times I like to listen to meaningless 80’s pop songs, depending on my mood.

This time of year there are always dollops of cheesy offerings filling the airwaves and there is often a debate about the best Christmas song, I am torn between Muds Lonely this Christmas and the wonderful Fairy-tale of new York, described by one as the perfect song to sing drunk, by Kirsty McColl and The Pogues.

If there needed to be proof that music is in the eye of the beholder and that there is something for everything, take a look at the back catalogue of the all-time top selling  band The Beatles, who have sold over 600million records. They are responsible for giving us such classics as the anthemic Hey Jude, the thumping Twist and Shout and the unforgettable Yellow Submarine.

People who say todays music is rubbish are simply wrong. Today’s music, whether it is to our taste or not is tomorrows classics. To people for whom it means something today it will continue to do so, it will bring to life their memories and fill their thoughts with sadness and joy. If music is the food of life , we shall never starve.