SONG: "Always and Forever" - JJ72 (I to Sky, 2002)

Music is such a vital component of everyday life that certain songs will always remind you of specific people or a given time or place; such is the strength of their evocative power that they will bring back rushes of the exact feeling you had when their meaning was most applicable to what was going on in your life.

JJ72 were actually the first band to make me pick up a guitar and start writing songs. I’d been inspired by countless artists before them, but had always found myself hitting something of a brick wall when it came to penning my own material. However, when their signature tune Snow appeared on a Melody Maker cover CD back in mid-2000 it made quite an impact on me. It was so simple, yet so powerful – the chord structures and melodies didn’t sound as complex as those by bands like R.E.M. and Counting Crows, whose shadow always loomed large over my own songwriting attempts as I was always trying to emulate their respective styles and inevitably falling short.

Similarly, I’d never felt confident about singing until JJ72 came along. The first time I heard Mark Greaney howling out the likes of Oxygen and Algeria though, I immediately knew that this was how I was supposed to do it: you just open your mouth and wail. Greaney’s voice – a startling mix of angelic choirboy and someone who’s just been set on fire – inevitably proved divisive, but his passion and conviction were undeniable. It was through listening to him and the more restrained (though often equally fraught) efforts of Elliott Smith which made me realise that you don’t have to be technically perfect to be a good singer: ultimately you could be coming out with any old nonsense, but if you do it with belief and feeling then the song takes on a life of its own. (I’ve since been told that my own singing voice is pitched halfway between these two influences, which is the biggest compliment I could hope for).

I confessed my guilty worship of the band to my housemates recently and they both scoffed loudly, bawling “WHYYYYY WON’T IT SNOOOOOWWWW???!!!” in hoots of derision. They’ve got a point, of course - JJ72 were always one of those bands who you either adored or couldn’t stand depending on how far you were able to connect with their overblown tantrums and sense of wintry melodrama. As an angsty, irrational 18-year-old falling in love left, right and centre, I thought they were absolutely perfect. Six years on, the naked emotional torment of their eponymous debut album has less relevance to me than when I first heard them, but it still has the ability to get me pretty fired up. As the title suggests, with their second LP I to Sky they set their sights much higher, jettisoning the self-indulgent cries of “I want to be a happy boy” and replacing them with aspirations towards a more holistic, spiritual outlook. Always and Forever was the album’s towering centrepiece – a triumphant proclamation of undying affection which by rights ought to have lifted them into the stratosphere. Sadly the record was poorly-promoted by faltering indie label Lakota and, after several years in the wilderness following the departure of willowy bassist Hillary Woods, the group recently disbanded.

This was my first ever ‘our song’ with a girl. Some people might think it a naff choice, and that’s fair enough – like I said earlier, you either bought into it with JJ72 or you didn’t. For me though it came along at exactly the right moment as I fell properly in love for the first time. “Halfway to heaven, I saw a light was on” coos Greaney over a brightly-strummed electric guitar; “In the deep blue of emptiness, my refuge grew strong”. Like the song’s key sentiment, the imagery is typically grandiose, conjuring widescreen panoramas of journeys across endless highways and insurmountable terrain, by “chariots of fire, and chariots of ice”. A piercing falsetto presides over a lilting refrain as the chorus arrives, only for the melody to eventually bend inward under the weight of its own lofty proclamations as Greaney sings: “For always and ever, my home”.

Always and Forever isn’t so much about the song for me, it’s more the experience which matters. It’s about feeling every conceivable emotion for the mere sake of feeling: “All that I asked from you was more of the same / All I received from you was more of this pain”. It’s about being so wrapped up in one person that everything else ceases to matter. Even though my relationship with the girl eventually ended, she’s still my best friend, and for that I will always be thankful. I owe her so much and have never really articulated the fact as well as I’d like to have done (though I did try on 7 Words). But we’ll always have this song. With its gloriously clear production it sparkles like gold, a shining diamond in the rough. It soars high above the rooftops and instils in me a feeling of pure love. It is indivisible from her in my memory. Always and forever, my home.