This is a story, every element describes a significant part of my life so far. I cried a few times when I put this collection together; but that was a good thing. I hope you enjoy my journey.

1. Cessna 172 startup. BBC Sound Effects Library

   I’ve been fascinated by flight for as long as I can remember. If my eyesight had been better my dream was to be an airline Captain. More specifically, a BA Captain. Even more specifically, a BA Concorde pilot. I managed to get my PPL in 1999, but never managed to fly on Concorde.
2. Soul Limbo - Booker T. And the M. G.s (1968)

   The BBC used this as the theme for the commentary of cricket on the radio. Even though I’m not a huge fan of any sport, this track evokes so many memories of summers back in the UK. My dad is a huge cricket fan and I remember trips with him listening to Test Match Special in the car.
3. Been Caught Stealin’ - Janes Addiction (1991)

   I bought this album in April 1991, in the afternoon after my Grandad’s funeral that morning. The next day was my 18th Birthday.
4. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - William Shatner

   Another link to my grandparent and my favorite sci-fi franchise. I remember sitting with my Mum as a kid watching Shatner strut his sexy green V-neck across the galaxy.
5. Forever Autumn - Jeff Wayne (1976)
   Some of my earliest memories of listening to music were at my Uncle’s house in the late 70s. He got me reading H. G. Wells, and Jeff Wayne’s version of War of The Worlds was has been in my lexicon ever since. Silver fronted HiFi equipment with green and orange incandescently lit meters still makes me want to listen to this. Huuuuuu Laaaaaar.
6. Come As You Are - Nirvana (1991)
   I went to University in September 1991 looking like I’d just woken up on the floor of a party backstage at a David Lee Roth gig. Hair metal died that autumn (I stand by my theory that “Cherry Pie” by Warrant killed hair metal), and these weird baggy trousered kids from Seattle took over.
7. The Man With The Child in His Eyes - Kate Bush (1978)

   Kate Bush danced her way in to my consciousness through her appearances on Top Of The Pops. This track is genuinely sublime, Kate’s voice brings a chill to me like no other, the recording and engineering (AIR Studios London, another link to my life experiences) are utterly top level.
8. Once in Every Lifetime…
   There are those who call me Tim, and I have a theory about brontosauruses.
9. You Give Love A Bad Name - Bon Jovi (1996)

   I’m 13. I’m sat in a music lesson at school, and someone brings their nth generation shitty copy of this new band that their brother’s friend is in to. It just spoke to me on a visceral level and I was hooked. My sister and cousin are also really big Bon Jovi fans and I’ve seen many Bon Jovi gigs with them and one of my best friends.
10. Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz (1993)

    You know one of those tunes that gets you on the dance floor every time you hear it in a club? This is one of those for me, and one of the songs that just ends up in every set list in every band I’ve ever played in. It’s the first thing I play when I pick up a guitar.
11. Jump Around - House of Pain (1992)
    If you ever visited Liverpool in the mid-90s and looked for a nightclub that catered for a rock crew, you’d have found the Krazy House. And if you’d gone in to the Krazy House you’d have seen the building shake as the entire club moshed.
12. One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head (1984)
    
Firstly - this is an absolute banger. Written by Benny and Bjorn (the BB from ABBA) with lyrics by Tim Rice, this track was from the musical Chess. My Dad had the soundtrack on cassette and listened to it ad infinitum for a period.
13. Toccata - Sky (1980)
    
Another one of my Dad’s albums that I hooked on to and listened to intensely. In the mid-80s my friend Daniel and I spent several weekends building an AV presentation that ran alongside Toccata (BBC Model B, all in 6502 ASM). I suppose we could have called it an art installation, but to us at that time it was just cool drawing stuff we threw on a screen that ran against an amazing arrangement of one of the most recognizable pieces of organ music ever written.
14. Love Walked In - Thunder (1990)
    Thunder never reached the critical success that they deserved. They’re relatively unknown outside the UK, despite their Les Paul driven sublime rock riffs and Danny Bowes’ voice. The band themselves are super approachable, my friend Chris and I ended up seeing them countless times one summer when they were on a promo tour in 1996. I even made a bootleg of an appearance they made in a record store in Preston with an MZ-R30.
15. Sisters - Steve Vai (1990)
The group I hung out with in sixth-form at school (ages 17 and 18) were polarized between Vai and Satriani (but we aligned with our common views that Yngwie Malmsteen was a pretentious f*). I was definitely in the Vai camp, and Passion and Warfare was an intrinsic part of my summer between school finishing and University starting. It’s so hard to pick a single track of an album that formed such a part of my growing up, but Sisters is the track which I think of whenever I imagine those times. Many, many years later I was studying with a new guitar teacher, and knew that she was the correct teacher for me when she told me that Sisters was one of her performance pieces she played for her degree in music.
16. Heaven Is A Place On Earth - Belinda Carlisle (1987)
    
In 1987, 14 year-old me became utterly besotted with Belinda. Not much has changed since…
17. Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys (1985).
    I grew up in suburbia. There was a lot of rioting in the UK in 1981, and I was terrified that those riots would spread to where I lived. Where I lived at the time was across the River Mersey from Liverpool. When there was rioting in the Toxteth area of Liverpool you could see the flames from our side of the Mersey. My schoolfriends reported to me how their parents had gone to look over the river at the infernos raging only a few miles away. At the time suburbia was my protective bubble from the civil unrest felt at the time, but as I grew older older it became a trap. If you weren’t in to drinking on a school field or sniffing glue in a WWII pillbox there was not a lot to keep you entertained. The exciting stuff happened in Liverpool.
18. Learning to Fly - The Foo Fighters (1999)
    
March 2022. I’ve known the person who’s now my wife for about 6 months, but we only met in person at the start of January. Against every scrap of wisdom and advice, we decided to drive half-way across the country together. So we built our own independent playlists, and set off on our journey. We learned so much about each other from those playlists, and despite our age gap we had a common core of musical tastes. That road trip cemented our relationship - and here we are heading for our third wedding anniversary.
19. Closer to The Heart - Rush (1977)
    I never got to see Rush play live. That’s a huge failure on my part. Closer to The Heart is just a perfect song. When Rush took it out of their touring repertoire the fans complained and it was quickly re-instated. It’s just under 3 minutes of sublime music, lyrics, and performance. Peart’s writings outside of his lyrics are deeply personal and emotional, I recommend Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road to anyone. RIP Professor.
20. Hot Dog and A Shake - David Lee Roth (1988)
    
Diamond F* David F* Lee F* Roth. The ultimate showman. With little Stevie Vai on guitar, along with Billy Sheehan and Gregg Bissonette on drums. Skyscraper divided opinion at the time, but has been an all-time favorite of mine. Legend says that this track was recorded in one go at the end of the skyscraper studio sessions. I finally saw DLR perform in 2025. I forgot 35+ years of aging that night.
21. Epilogue
    
In 2003 Concorde was retired from service. After the horrific crash of AF4590 in Paris the rework required made certain routes uneconomical, and Airbus who by that point held the certificate of airworthiness for the type decided to withdraw it. The world had changed. The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the subsequent recession in air travel brought other ways of working to people. The urgency to get from London to New York had gone - we found other technologies to replace flight at 60,000 feet at a mile every two-and-a-half seconds. I never got to fly on Concorde, although have visited most of the BA fleet. Godspeed Speedbird 001.

This is a narrative of my life. Every track has a distinct meaning and reflects people, places, events, and memories that are significant to me; from my early fascination with flight, my family's musical influences, through to road trips with my wife; indeed the inclusion of Learn To Fly by the Foo Fighters has nothing to do with learning to fly myself.

I designed this to be listened to as a single piece; any silence on the disc is deliberate. I pondered leaving this as a single track, however I've added track marks and titles after writing the disc as a single track.

I'd recommend listening whilst drinking an Islay whisky such as Laphroaig.

Sound effects from the BBC Sound Effects Library - CD Rip
Alvar Lidell “This is the BBC” recording from the BBC archives
Soul Limbo is a noisy vinyl copy. This is deliberate
Monty Python audio from a YouTube clip
All other tracks are lossless FLAC CD Rips
Mixed and automated in Garage Band
Recorded as disc at once on a Sony MZ-R30 via S/PDIF over TOSLINK
Track markers manually added
Titled on a Sony MZ-NF810 using WebMDPro