It was one of the flashbacks offered by Mr Albanese as he talked about his life and his love for music on ABC Melbourne on Sunday night.
The first song off the bat played for listeners was The Triffids' classic Wide Open Road.
"I think this is one of the great Australian songs," Mr Albanese said.
"It is a driving song, a road song and on long trips ... I will put this on pretty regularly."
He recalled a trip he and his then-girlfriend took with a mate across the Nullarbor in late 1984 to see The Triffids play in Perth.
Mr Albanese then spent the next six weeks in Western Australia before getting a lift home, including spending Christmas Day on the iconic Rottnest Island.
Toto, the prime minister's beloved dog, got a shout out with the The Fauves' Dogs Are The Best People dedicated to the four-legged occupant of the Lodge.
Mr Albanese said dogs would always give you a warm reception when you walked into the room, a booster during hard times in politics.
The Boss's Born to Run was the last of the prime minister's three songs, where he remembered backpacking across Africa and Europe before arriving in a still-divided Berlin.
There he saw Bruce Springsteen in West Berlin before having to negotiate his way back into communist East Berlin where he was staying.
"(Springsteen's) lyrics have examined the American condition and they've looked at issues of racism, issues of equality," Mr Albanese said.
The prime minister also said he had doubts about his son Nathan's initial tastes in music but recently saw him sporting a Talking Heads Remain in Light T-shirt.
"And I thought wow, I've been a good father," Mr Albanese said.
But the prime minister also spoke about how music had influenced his political life.
"Music, of course, has always been political and that remains the case today," he said.
He pointed to late nights seeing bands including Midnight Oil and Violent Femmes in the '80s, which he recalled as a "very political time for bands".
"I think the Thatcher government in Britain produced some fantastic bands: The Jam, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Billy Bragg.
"I've said this before but the only good thing about hard right-wing governments is they end up resulting in good music."
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