My Top of the Pops

For your delight and delectation this fine Saturday, I thought I’d share with you five of my favourite songs and the reasons why I rate them so highly.

So let’s start of with TOM WAITS - ‘Picture in a Frame’:

Not everyone’s cup of tea, with his rasping fag-ravaged voice, but from the beautiful opening strains of piano to the final note, this song never fails to bring a smile to my face and a tear to my eye.  “I’m gonna love you to til the wheels come off,” What a line!  It makes me think of my dear dad every time.  If you’ve never heard any Waits, prepare yourself.

THE B52’s  ‘The Love Shack’: The track that always gets me up and dancing.  I think it should be prescribed on the NHS as an antidote to depression.  A quick boogie round the kitchen to this and I always feel my spirits lift.

For a bit of passion, you can’t beat DAVID BOWIE’s ‘Wild is the Wind’.  In the vid you get to look at lots of yummy pics of him while he sings, “Love me, love me, love me say you will.  Let me fly away with you.”  Don’t forget to stick with it for the crescendo (“You touch me”).

Moving on to another delicious man.  The man with the smile in his voice - DEAN MARTIN ‘Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime’:  I grew up on Deano but, as a teenager, never quite ‘got’ him.  Now I’m one of his biggest fans and part of the camp who believe his voice is far superior to Sinatra’s.  And of course he also reminds me of my lovely dad.

Can’t imagine that many couples have had a DR HOOK number for their bridal waltz but “Years from Now’ seemed the obvious choice for us. The words were particularly poignant to us and remain so to this day.  We can often be seen having a little kitchen glide to this.

This wasn’t an easy task. I love all types of music - Broadway musicals, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Adele, Ella Fitzgerald, Manilow, Crowded House to name but a few. So coming up with just five was virtually impossible - YOU try!

Which is why I’m going to allow myself ONE more.  It’s a song I never tackled in my acting years and I will always regret it.  LIZA MINELLI, ‘Maybe this Time’ from Cabaret.  This was the best video I could find where the song is uninterrupted and there are some fantastic images of the film and my favourite era of all time.

Hope I’ve made your day go with a swing and got you thinking about your own top hits!

My novel “Diary of a Mummy Misfit” is available to buy on Amazon for Kindle or PC.  Give yourself a giggle.
Now also available in paperback at Lulu.