Deacon Blue’s Chocolate Girl from the album Raintown (1987) drops into my Spotify playlist as the app moves from the normal track listings into suggestions.
I stop what I’m doing.
I haven’t heard the song in so long but I’m instantly transported to my memories of a younger (much younger) self, sitting on a bus listening to the album on my red Sanyo personal cassette player (with graphic equaliser!).
It is early on a cold grey and frosty morning and I’m going from Faifley to Whitecrook on the 62 bus. It feels like a long time to go so few miles but as I finally get to my stop and get off the bus to walk up the small hill to Dawson, Downie and Lamont (pump makers) where I worked as a Shipping clerk, I’m still listening to this album and Chocolate girl comes on. I will enter the old Victorian factory through the large shed entrance to the sounds of Ricky Ross’ husky vocal and Lorraine McIntosh’s soaring accompaniments. My senses are assaulted with the light (what there is of it on a morning like this) coming through the large skylights; the amber hued glow of the many large hanging lamps above the machines and the smell of oil and metal will be almost overwhelming as I make my way to the wood built set of offices I worked in, adjacent to the factory floor.
It is lovely that a song can be a vehicle to personal time travel and has the ability to drop you into a memory of time, place, image and smell like nothing else.