According to my parents, it was I Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison. I was a toddler and apparently loved that song.

But the first one I distinctly remember was the B-52’s Love Shack.

Age 3: youtu.be/ZySztfI3ukw

Age 5: youtu.be/EPhWR4d3FJQ

youtu.be/AAZQaYKZMTI

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.

I’m not an Aussie, but in elementary school choir we learned this song, and it’s been an earwig my whole life.

When Men At Work came on the radio many years later, that flute riff blew my mind.

Feel Good Inc.

When it came out, I was a young teen who had never heard anything quite like it before. Alt-rock meets hip-hop? I don’t feel like I’m alone in that

It kinda depends on how I think of what a favorite song is.

The earliest possible song was “we will rock you”, but that was before I can remember. It was what my mom used as a bedtime song. No bullshit, she’d put the 45 on, and just keep replaying it by resetting the needle until I dropped off. No matter how fussy I was, that worked.

And I’ve always loved that song. As I got older, she’d also play are are the champions after, but again, that was before I can remember. But it was a song I’d beg her to play frequently, and I do have memories of that from before kindergarten.

But is that really a favorite? It isn’t a song I heard and chose, it doesn’t really count as my favorite any more than a lullaby would.

The first song I can remember latching onto because I just really loved it was Mountain Music, by Alabama. That album was the second one that was officially mine. I bought a Joan Jett album with my own money as my first album, and my dad got me the Mountain Music album the same day as a reward for something or other (he and I have different memories of what that was lol).

So, it would probably be Mountain Music, though it is really hard to pick through memory and be certain it as the first. Damn near fifty years old, so the first five or six years get hazy, and I had a head injury when I was about 12 that kinda fucked things up.

It might have been the Joan Jett song “I hate myself for loving you”, or maybe something off of the album I bought, “glorious results of a misspent youth”. Could have been one of her previous songs, with I love rock n roll or “do ya wanna touch” being the likely contenders there.

But I remember how much I loved the specific song Mountain Music clearly, so that’s what I have come to think of as my first favorite.

If you use other standards, it might be later songs, but it is what it is lol.

For me, it was The One I Love by R.E.M. from when I was about four or five.

Besides being a banger of a song, I think part of the appeal to my younger self was how easy the lyrics were to understand and memorize, which I still have memorized. They were my first favorite band too.

The Twist - Chubby Checker.

First tape I ever bought for myself. Still love oldies to this day.

My first ever favorite song was DuckTales - Theme Song.

If TV show songs are off the list… then it would be, it would have to be The California Raisins - Lean On Me (Cover).

First popular song? Probably Call Me, by blondie. It was played at every skate rink in 1982.

Before that, my memory doesn't hold. There was one about a castle and a stunt man who got burned in a three way script. And a ghost was there.

AFI - The boy who destroyed the world.

Tony hawk pro skater: 3 had an amazing soundtrack. Still love call and answer vocals today. And punk rock. And AFI.

Achey Breaky Heart - Billy Ray Cyrus

I was 6. I listen to punk and emo now.

Puff the Magic Dragon.

The ending of that song is so damn sad, man.

Talking post-Sesame Street/Mister Rogers/Electric Co. tunes

Circa 1983 on my first plane ride alone, aged about 10, from CA to GA, headphones plugged into the armrest with the ashtray inside: ‘The Tide Is High’ by Blondie was the first ‘grown-up’ song I recall that grabbed me.