The Guardian has a marvellous Q&A every week where a celebrity, the most recent one being the celebrity chef Tom Kerridge, chooses her or his honest playlist and not, perhaps, the playlist that might make them appear a bit more right on and trendy.
As a celebrity in my own right – sorry, in my own mind – I figured out I’d do my own honest playlist for the benefit of my loyal reader. Here goes.
The first song I remember hearing
I’d love to say someone like the Beatles or the Stones, but the truth is probably Sidesaddle by Bristol’s own Russ Conway, shown here at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club in 1974, around a decade after I heard the original.
My Auntie Gladys, who wasn’t really my auntie at all, I later discovered, had a lovely record player where the singles dropped one by one on the turntable and I was always fighting to put this one back to the top again. When I hear it, I am in front room of her house on Upper Sandhurst Road in Briz (Brislington, in Bristol).
The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
I stayed in London with my dad in London when he was over from Canada, where he had emigrated in 1967. I have no idea about the year. Maybe the year after? Anyway, one evening, in the driving rain he drove us to Sheerness in Kent for what I have no recollection. Anyway, I sang loads of songs along the way, reading the lyrics from a pile of Record Song Books I seemed to carry everywhere.
The one song I remember above all others is Gotta See Jane by R. Dean Taylor, especially the lyrics “windshield wipers, splishing splashing…” and the next time I heard it played I knew all the words.
Now, when I hear the song, I am in the passenger seat of my dad’s car and that’s the song that I can always hear.
The last time I saw my dad in 2009, two years before he died, I started to reminisce about that trip and he had no recollection of it. Given his legendary powers of recall, I started to doubt myself. Did it happen at all? Did I imagine it? Did I dream it all and the passing years have turned it into a memory, as photographs sometimes do?
My childhood memories are quite threadbare as it is but this is definitely one of them. Isn’t it? It was around that time when I developed night terrors and had terrible panic attacks. Was I more mad than I realised? No. Gotta See Jane was for real. It really happened.
The best song to play at a party
I am the last person to be asked question like that. Parties are anathema to me. Too many people, too much music I don’t like. Take me somewhere quiet. But if push comes to shove? I’ll go for something by K C and the Sunshine Band. How about That’s The Way (I Like It)? Perfect pop music.
The song I stream the most
I don’t stream music: I buy it. The song I am playing all the time at the moment is Juanita by Angélica Garcia. She’s from Los Angeles, of Mexican and Salvadoran lineage and as she sings in Spanish and I have no idea what she’s singing about. But who cares when she makes music like this?
The song I can no longer listen to
Plenty to choose from here, but I have always been a fan of Neil Diamond, particularly his work in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a singer-songwriter, before he joined the cabaret circuit.
His 1969 album Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show (I bought it years later) became my second favourite Diamond record, after Taproot Manuscript, and Sweet Caroline was only added to it in later pressings. When I play the album these days, I stop before the last track because hearing it at everything from football, rugby, darts, boxing and cricket has utterly ruined it for me. I don’t think it’s one of his best songs, either, but it carries on topping up his pension plan.
The song I wish I’d written
Where to begin with this? My favourite song can change by the hour so what I choose now might not be the same one I choose as I publish this blog. Still, let’s try one.
My favourite album of all time never really changes. It’s Aja by Steely Dan, released in 1977. It changed the way I thought about music forever and opened my eyes to the wide variety of genres I would embrace.
The title track is a simply incredible piece of music. If only I could have written it. No band sounds like this. The drums played by Steve Gadd are insane, the stuff of genius. If I was a drummer, I’d pack my kit up and go home after hearing this.
The song I secretly like but tell everyone I hate
I used to tell everyone I hated everything by Queen. Oh, wait. I still do. Everything except Keep Yourself Alive, despite the hideously overstacked backing vocals, which I actually bought.
However, things went rapidly downhill from thereon in, with dross like Seven Seas of Rhye, Now I’m Here and worst of all the execrable Bohemian Rhapsody polluting the airwaves. Then they went to Sun City and I have never forgiven them for that.
The song that changed my life
Aja (see above) changed the way I thought about music. I’m pretty sure the first LP my mum ever bought for me was A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles, the opening chord of which was one of the greatest things I have ever heard. It’s a perfect record and I well remember the very little me completely falling in love with Things We Said Today. After that, music was at the very heart of me and that’s where it will always be.
The song that gets me up in the morning
Lauren Laverne gets me up in the morning (I wish) with her BBC 6 Music breakfast show, so it will likely be one of the bangers she plays.
Today, it was Listening Man by The Bees, I Bet you Look Good On The Dance floor by Arctic Monkeys and Sick In The Head by Kneecap. And, to be honest, so much more.
The song I’d like played at my funeral
I’ll be far too dead to enjoy it, so really there’s no point in asking, but since you did, I’ll go for this one. I haven’t made the formal plans just yet so if I pop my clogs tonight, this will have to do.
It’s We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches.
