The first song I remember hearing
Dire Straits – ‘Walk Of Life’
“My parents would play Dire Straits‘ ‘Money For Nothing’ [greatest hits] album in the car when we would go on our seaside trips to Skegness. Obviously this song has a very distinctive keyboard riff and I think that’s why it’s lived long in my memory.”
The first song I fell in love with
The Stone Roses – ‘Waterfall’
“It’s the first song I fell in love with because I found it myself, rather than having somebody play it for me, if that makes sense. And I loved it so much that I bought it on all formats. The Stone Roses were a big part of my musical upbringing and I still listen to them now. But it’s a bit difficult at the moment, isn’t it? I think it calls into question the legitimacy of your love for any given band when the members’ public profile is perhaps skewed away from one’s central core beliefs.”
The first gig I went to
The Levellers – Granby Halls, Leicester, 1993
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“I remember it very well. I bought my gig ticket and my coach ticket and got on the coach from Nottingham to Leicester. And then I bought the band t-shirt when I was there. They were supported by a UK rock-rap group called Credit To The Nation and I remember their set well too. I loved the whole experience and fell in love with gigs there and then.”
The song that makes me want to dance
Donna Summer – ‘I Feel Love’
“I initially thought of ‘Inspector Norse’ by Todd Terje because it’s the perfect nu-disco track. Whether you know it or not, it always gets people going. But then I heard ‘I Feel Love’ last night on the TV and thought ‘OK, let’s go back to original disco’. That’s the track that gets everybody going.”
The song I do at karaoke
Erasure – ‘A Little Respect’
“It’s one of the most perfect pop songs I’ve ever heard. It’s definitely a song I enjoy doing at karaoke, but I can’t vouch for the quality of my performance. I used to run a club night in Shoreditch when I was much younger, and [Erasure singer] Andy Bell came and did a DJ set for us. He was very, very sweet and played some wonderful records.”
The song that reminds me of home
Aphex Twin – ‘Xtal’
“It’s the first track on ‘Selected Ambient Works 85–92‘. It reminds me of home because I can distinctly remember listening to that album over and over again on cassette on the way to school, on the way back from school, and just walking around my village back in Nottinghamshire. That track came into my sphere when I was about 14 or 15 and it felt like entering a whole new world, a whole new dimension.”
The song I can no longer listen to
Elbow – ‘Station Approach’
“It’s not because I’ve heard it too much or it’s overplayed. It’s because it reminds me of going home to see my mother who I lost prematurely three years ago. It’s a song about [Elbow singer] Guy Garvey going home to Manchester and seeing so much familiarity around him. I love this song, but when he sings “I haven’t seen my mum for weeks”, I just lose it. So I just can’t do it any more.”
The song I wish I had written
Keaton Henson – ‘You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are’
“Keaton Henson isn’t the sort of artist I would normally like. I have nothing against stripped back folk music, but it’s not up there with the genres of music I usually listen to. But this song, goodness me, it’s just so spare and beautiful. Whether I enjoy a band or not, especially when I see them live, tends to come down to whether I think they mean it. Obviously that’s subjective and unquantifiable in some ways but I think there’s something in it. I have no particular relationship to what this song is about but I can feel that he really, really means it.”
The song I can’t get out of my head
Daft Punk – ‘Alive’
“It’s not an annoyance, I adore this song. It’s a very stripped back piece of electronic house music and there’s something about the energy and drive of it that reminds me of my own brain. I think it’s that repetitive movement forward. It’s my favourite piece of electronic music of all time. Incidentally, it’s also the song I would probably have played at my funeral, just for the irony of it being called ‘Alive’.
‘The Nan Movie’ is in UK cinemas now