My Song of the Year was one with personal, emotional resonance for me. The lead off single from The Shins return Heartworms, it told the personal history of their leader James Mercer, teenage years of his youth spent at an RAF base in East Anglia with his family and the way those personal memories still play on him all this time later. I heard it first just before I was due to go back to that part of the world myself for work training for the first time since 1990 when I'd graduated from the University of East Anglia in Norwich. It was a deeply poignant return for me and this song accompanied me through it all though unexpectedly the trip only acted as the merest curtain call for a further visit a few more months further down the line for more training which was the occasion of hearing of a terrible personal family loss which cast the darkest shadows imaginable over the close of my year. Music indisputably helps and matters most at times like these. As the song itself suggests over a gentle pitter patter backing worthy of Buddy Holly, 'and that's how, we get to where we are now...' . And on we go too. Simply a wonderful illustration on what narrative Rock and Roll can do as well or better than any other art form, (the video also hits the spot very succinctly).
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