For years, the instrumental of this song was the identity track for a local tv channel in Mexico. It was interwoven to many childhood memories, good and bad, and of sitting on a mustard coloured carpet, a small table where my notebook and pile of homework to solve, the afternoon cartoon line-up helping my concentration that would be 100% if it was a cartoon I hated, like The Flinstones.

Then again, a cartoon like the Real Ghostbusters would drain my attention span.

I never found who sang it until 2010. I was on a plane back from Mexico to Sheffield (via Heathrow) and the American Airlines classic station had several good tracks. Sadly, there was no magazine with the tracklist on my seat, so I had to sort of guess the lyrics because damn, those airplane turbines are still loud even with the best of headphones.

I always found this song heartbreaking. A former girlfriend used to say it was a cruel song. I think those two perceptions intersect. It’s easily my fave OMD song and I also appreciate how it opened their entire catalogue to me. Enola Gay has all rights to be such a classic too, just like Joan of Arc and Locomotion.

You want to know the funniest part? In 2008, I spent Christmas in Enkhuizen with some Dutch friends, and in one of many excursions to Hema, I ended up buying a bunch of cheap CDs. One of those CDs? OMD’s greatest hits. Which I didn’t listen until late 2010, when I really thought of slapping myself silly for not listening to albums I buy.

-Sam J. Valdés López