9. Stacy's Mom, Fountains Of Wayne (2003)

Sometimes the songs that bring back the best memories are the silliest. When me and the boy got together in 2004, this song was bloody everywhere. It sang out of every music channel we switched on, blared out of every radio we tuned into, jumped out of car windows, shook our eardrums in supermarkets. It was a devilish, catchy thing – a song about a young boy who fancied his friend's mother which, like all Fountains Of Wayne singles, played like a three-minute American comedy movie, the perfect accompaniment to a big tub of popcorn. There was no escaping it, either, so the joke began there. Even though the lyrics were deeply inappropriate – I was two years younger for starters, and he was far from a schoolboy – this song was Our Song.

Of course there were other songs too. There were the tracks we had put on compilation CDs for each other, like United States Of America's Love Song For The Dead Che, Dusty Springfield's So Much Love, Cat Power's Sea of Love... love, love love. But this was the one that carried us along as we went about our way in the world. It made us laugh all the time, and it still takes me back to rainy evenings holding his hand on the top decks of Routemasters, him in his furry-collared coat, his deep, grey-green eyes looking into mine, that lovely smile starting to play on his mouth.

This song would soundtrack another funny moment in my life three years later – an interview with the band being the reason I had to get an American visa (I still laugh when I remember the Embassy official asking me why on earth I wanted to meet that "terrible band", who were quite sweet, for the record, even though I caught stomach flu off Adam Schlesinger's daughter at her seventh birthday party). But it's still mine and Dan's song above any other. And even though the Routemasters have long gone, as well as that coat, those eyes are still here – right now they're looking at a sandwich he's making in the kitchen, his smile popping into the living room as he gets ready for work. Just like Stacy's Mom, he's still got it going on.