Any time I need to see your face I just close my eyes/ And I'm taken to a place where your crystal mind/ And magenta feelings take up shelter in the base of my spine/ Sweet like a chic-a-cherry cola.

There I was, but a wee slip of a girl, and this song came and pulled me breathlessly into a technicolour bliss of existence. Of course, there has been flirtations with pop before, how could I avoid the 911s and Take Thats that vied for my attention? But none had won my heart.

Back then, I didn't even know what my (older, worldly, Bon Jovi-loving) sister meant when she said 'This is all a bit eighties, isn't it?' The 80s? What did music sound like back then? I had no idea: my cultural consciousness stretches only as far back as Ace of Base singing 'All That She Wants' on TOTP at my father's house. Organic mother, you see. NKOTB mean nothing to me; I was too busy being mentally stimulated by plain wooden blocks and biodynamic watercolours. Probably why I joyfully leapt headfirst into the land of Sweet Valley, trashy American soaps and glossy fashion magazines at the first chance I found. Poor woman.

So, this song is everything to me. The world blossomed before me, beautiful and full of tangible delight as dear Darren took me by the hand and led me out of my natural hemp habitat, into a place where things were shiny and new and full of MSG and artificial E numbers. From the very first rumbling drum tempo, and bubbling electronic notes so full of promise, I was seduced.

"Take me to this place of effervescent wonder!" I cried, "Where vocals repeat the main verse with a layered harmony, and strange hiccups and waftingly ethereal voices mutter incomprehensibly. Where strange guitar-like riffs meld with synthetic melody, and the chorus is like magic saucers melting their sugar paper on my tongue; revealing the fizzy tang of bitter sweetness unlike anything I've ever known!"

And oh, the remix on the 1998 rerelease limited edition single CD! Little did I realise at the time (as the additional piano chords and strange heavy layering pulled me under yet again, just like that deep-sea diver swimming without a raincoat) that this was to be my first Xenomania experience. Insistent and blissful, Darren was now chanting over and over, rhyming structure completely reformed until the difference between want and need was forever imprinted with anticipation in my impressionable mind.

I tried to love cherry cola, as a tribute to my coming of pop age experience, I really did. But it was only sickly and sticky. It had none of the heart-stop adrenalin with which those breathless promises tempted me. Nothing I've found yet does.