Think back to your childhood: What is your earliest music memory? Share that song and your story!

I’ve grew up in a home where I was surrounded by music, so it’s difficult to definitively identify my earliest music memory. My mother tells me she used to dance me to sleep as an infant to Beatles and Buddy Holly records, so it’s no mystery how I come by my obsession with the wonder of the perfectly crafted pop song. It’s the closest thing to real magic I know.

One of my earliest memories tied to the birth of this obsession though is looking through my parents vinyl record collection; pulling them off the shelves, examining the minute details of the cover art, opening them and looking at the pictures of the mysterious people responsible for the mind-blowing sounds coming from my parents stereo, even before I could read the liner notes.

Many of those magic slabs of vinyl live in my collection now. One strong memory: I remember being particularly taken with the Annie Leibovitz image on the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA as a child.

Eventually, I would forge my own relationship with The Boss when I discovered Nebraska in high school (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend Warren Zanes’ Deliver Me From Nowhere), but this song—which is definitely giving Nebraska-esque vibes—has always been my favorite from the record with the cover that first captured my imagination.

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head Only you can cool my desire Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire