I owe a lot to the Frank & Walters.

Late one New Year's Eve night, five or so years ago in Edinburgh, my then girlfriend and I were going back to the apartment we were staying in. We had been going out for over a year at that stage. Leading up to that Christmas, all the signs were that we had come to the usual relationship juncture. I say 'usual' as I had been in a similar situation with previous girlfriends and had always, eventually, taken the exit option. I didn't know if this time, with this woman, it was different. The unspoken loomed above us. By inclination and training I am a rational man - probably too rational - and that side of me is not much use in decisions in the realm of the emotion.

We had had a great night out with friends, drinks, dinner, fireworks, a perfect evening. We started singing as we walked down the now deserted streets of the city, quietly as first and then louder and louder. In the right range I can fair belt it out and one song that fits my range is the Frank's "How Can I Exist". It is, to say the least, an emotional, heart-on-the-sleeve type of song with the crescendo being:

"It's time we stopped the pretending
that we don't need love to get by"

Music can help you bypass all those rational, right brain processes, to trust the emotion you feel and make the necessary leap (a quality it shares with alcohol, but without the regrets). Songs allow you to express the things you can't, for whatever reason, say. So we sung and then caught each other's eye and laughed. When we got home, for the first time, we told each other we loved each other. Yeah I know, corny as f*ck, but a certain amount of corn is allowed and indeed necessary in these matters. That woman (eventually!) became my wife and is now also the mother of my baby daughter.

I try not to think how different my life might now be if we had started singing something by Radiohead instead.

Thanks Niall, thanks Paul, thanks Ashley.