Do you remember this one? Of course you do.

 I first heard it way, way back. A foggy mid-week nightclub; all the drunk kids throwing epileptic shapes, caught in the random snapshot of a flickering strobe, cigarette end trails tracing a figure of eight, because back then it was still real cool to smoke.

 Man, that killer combo. Bass, drums, guitar and voice.

 Amazing. The simplest of recipes, the most basic of ingredients, yielding such damn near perfect results. The reverb on those spidery solo’s, the subtle echo on the edge of the vocals. It felt like a prayer, a hymn, sound tracking my own slow ascension as I crept up towards heaven.  

 The song became an anthem. Blasting out of car stereos, windows screwed up tightly to totally hotbox the motor; floating from a set of beaten-up speakers in some stranger’s front room as the manic evening finally wound down.

 Sometimes, I would play it quietly, whispering through my earphones at five o’clock in the morning, a frozen moment when I would almost forget to breathe because I was far too busy being alone, drowning in the absolute majesty of the music.

 Funny, really. Eventually, we all learn about life’s transitory nature. The comings and goings. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s family, shitty dead-end jobs or even the place that you call home. Only a tiny handful of sacred things are ever truly constant.

 Like you.

 And this tune.

 Hell, the format may have changed over the years, but the mood, the emotion, the feeling, that has always remained the same.

 The scratched vinyl of a second-hand copy, expertly lifted from a flea market record stall, its hiss and crackle adding yet another layer of mystery to the mesmerising beat, endlessly revolving as we shyly made love for the very first time in the damp confines of my freezing bedsit.

 As the opening number on the cassette mix tape I made for you, nervously cobbled together while swigging gut rot red plonk, the night before the anniversary dinner that you cooked up for next to nothing in the cramped kitchen of the house that you shared with your mates.

 On the CD I slipped the DJ on our wedding day, the look of horror followed by joy that floated across your face as you slapped mine when he swapped it, dropping the piece of schmaltzy crap you had lined up for our opening dance.

 Digitally downloaded onto a memory stick last week, to play, today of all days.

 As it echoes around the crematorium, the swirling beauty of the song once again conjures up countless sensations inside of me. A hint of fleeting anger as I curse the cancer that took you. A tiny sliver of sadness that your flesh can no longer touch mine.

 But most of all, a simple smile as I think of later tonight, when I will listen to it once more, dance through our empty house, and know that you are always with me.