The range of illumination:

So from 5th through 7th grade, I was well on my way to being really into hair metal. I largely would have been a normal kid, but my musical tastes (despite this being the period I was also involved in the Atlanta Boys Choir) would have ranged from Motley Crue to Ratt.

Through a small chain of seemingly unrelated events, I became good friends with a kid named Richard. His older sister was somewhat of a punk legend in our high school, and dated (and eventually married) the guy who was the punk icon of good ol' Henderson. A small mythology surrounded them in a very suburban way.

The thing about our high school was that it was neither very large nor very diverse in groups - there were only the standard stereotypes in large, overlapping swaths - jocks, geeks/nerds, stoners, do-gooders and...the alterna-crowd. This was before the "Alternative Music" designation came into common use, but the tag kinda fit - everyone who identified with punk, goth, semi-skinhead, skater and so on all just hung together. Anyway, Richard overlapped the nerd-alternative groups because he (like me) was a bigole nerd in many ways, but he inherited some of the punk prestige from his sister. I never attained the alterna-image, but the music did grab me. I somewhat became a proto-goth (I wore lots of grey).

It just struck me recently that the first song I remember, and that I attribute much to do with my aesthetics (musical and otherwise) was "All in My Mind" by Love and Rockets. It changed my view on music all around, and the video blew me away. I wanted a bass guitar like David J's. I was a bit squeamish (growing up Guy in the South for the win!) at Daniel Ash's very slight gender flaunting, but it all keyed into something for me.

This made me do some nostalgia touring on YouTube last night through lots of early Adam Ant, Siouxsie, The Cure, bauhaus and so on. For a change, it didn't make me sad, just appreciative - so wherever you are out there, Richard Johnston, thanks for saving me from wearing leopard skin leotards with a denim jacket!

(Also, your sister was hot.)

I can't say it was necessarily the first song of these "other" sorts I'd heard, or even with certain hindsight that it really was what changed it all, but it's what I associate with it.
And how lolgoth of me, I suppose.

So now, happy-ass livejournal reader:
Are there any songs like that for you? - made or shaped what your tastes are today, even if there wasn't Just One, but it symbolizes or essentializes the idea for you.
(pst, yes, that's your cue. subtle hint!)