My first single: Booker T & The MGs - Green Onions (1980)

I bought my first single from Woolies in Stockport in January 1980, when I was ten years old. I think I paid 59p for Green Onions out of my Christmas money, though it may well have been cheaper.

I can't recall what spurred me to actually buy it, though I dimly remember it standing out on the radio at the time - a taut, short burst of instrumental R&B played at walking pace, kind of slow and tense and groovy at the same time.

I'd been taping the Top 40 on Sunday evenings for a while and already bought my first album (Blondie's Parallel Lines, sadly on tape) so experiencing the rite of passage of buying your first single was surely overdue. Other kids at school must have been talking about what they'd bought, so I headed off to nail my colours to the mast.

I may have cheated myself of the full experience by heading to Woolies, where I was probably served by a kindly middle-aged lady, rather than some intimidating High Fidelity-style bloke disgusted by the idea of children buying music. I suspect I was also accompanied by my mother, come to think of it.

Still, despite the unpromising circumstances, Green Onions turned out to be a fine choice for first single. Quite why it wasn't something terrible like The Monks' Nice Legs Shame About Her Face or The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star I'm not quite sure. M's Pop Muzik and The Knack's My Sharona must have been in serious consideration about that time, because I loved both, but thankfully Green Onions was the winner when it came to parting with my money.

It came in a brown sleeve marked with the Atlantic logo - no picture sleeve sadly - and had been re-released 17 years after it was originally a US hit because it featured in Quadrophenia, to the sight of a preening Sting dancing at a Mod disco. Not that I was aware of any of this at the time.

Booker T & the MGs had disbanded back then, so there was no Top Of The Pops appearance.

I recall the huge sense of investment I felt while listening to the weekend chart after I'd bought it. Surely it would go straight to No.1 now I'd slung my resources behind it. In truth, it crept to No.7 and started to slide the week after. I felt slightly cheated.

Not that it put me off listening to the record. I've played it on and off for the last 30 years and never grown tired of it. Some of the music of your youth you lose interest it or turn against only to return to because it has such a nostalgic pull. But Green Onions has always sounded great.

It's been claimed that Green Onions in some kind of drug reference but Booker T Jones, who was just 17 when he wrote the song's great Hammond organ riff, insists it refers to a cat whose walk inspired the loping pace of the song.

That rather more innocent explanation suits the memories it evokes. Playing it now still brings back my parents' old stereo, with its wooden trim around the edges, large radio dial and top-loader tape deck.

Most of the music of my youth reminds me of friends and places but Green Onions is all about still being at home, heading into the final straight of primary school, fooling myself that I a big kid now because I was about to head off to secondary school.

Ah, Pannini stickers, the smell of cut grass on the school field, jumpers for goalposts...