What's a song you associate with your hometown?

The town I grew up in, like many a small provincial town, is slowly morphing into yet another satellite town. The pubs are closing, the high street is being dismantled, and soon enough it’ll just be retail parks and houses.

The town I grew up in still had some industry, a large bottling plant and whisky brewery dominated one end of the high street. The shops were varied, as were the pubs. The retail park had not yet been built.

The town I grew up in has a rich history as part of the shipbuilders of the Clyde. The Cutty Sark was built in my hometown. The Denny family were generous to the town.

We are a proud nation, us Scots, and it’s safe to say that I spent many a formative evening in the pubs of my home town, where, regardless of current music trends, one track was guaranteed to get everyone singing along. It still does.

Tell us about your very favorite holiday / Christmas song.

But it's August!

I guess if you buy into it, Christmas can seem like the most wonderful time of the year, and if it's beginning to look a lot like that time of year, then it's usually when the same raft of songs appear on the radio.

Runner up: Marshmallow World because it's magical and fun!

I think for most people Christmas songs are more about memories, so for me it would have to be some Andy Williams as my parents had a couple of his LPs that they'd play on a Sunday morning whilst reading the papers.

If I'm being honest, Christmas doesn't seem quite as special as it used to, but with a son starting to understand what it's all about and some new traditions started it's starting to feel a little more special year by year. This song always reminds me of that.

Share a song that feels like a prayer.

That isn't by Madonna? Hmmm (I mean like a prayer sure does feel uplifting, right? What a song!)

In that case I'll take a specific version of a song that always makes me feel uplifted and joyous —I don't pray, is that what it feels like for believers?

The original version of this lives on a classic album, a top 20 of all time candidate, even if the band have fallen into a bit of pastiche of themselves.

The Joshua Tree remains a stunningly good album, the song writing alone is clear, evocative, and I'll happily play it end to end from time to time. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For is one of the stand out tracks, anthemic, and hinting back to great soul love songs (River Deep, Mountain High anyone?), it could probably be seen as prayer like, prayer adjacent?

But during a set at Madison Square Garden they brought on a New York gospel choir, The New Voices of Freedom, who took that song and elevated into something that still gives me goosebumps. The soaring choir, the melodies, the underlying sense of elevated joy took a good song and elevated to a higher plane.

A celebration of music, a prayer to the power of bringing people in the shared experience of live music, a melding of genres that works so well it feels a little like U2 stole this song from a hymn book somewhere.

What song makes you think of your parents?

My Dad loved folk music, my Mum loved pop. They had a lot more depth to their musical tastes of course —both enjoyed classical music and sang in choirs— but those are the genres I associate with both.

This song instantly takes me to our family home, the tape deck in the kitchen is on, it’s summer and the windows are open. As they prepare a salad, or prep some fruit, this is the song that’s playing.

What song makes you feel like you're in love with the world?

The first song that my Mum heard on the radio after I was born. She described it me later as "feeling like she was finally connected to the world", which isn't the kind of sentiment my Mum used often.

"There is wonder in most every thing I see, Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes"

Listening to the track always reminds me of how close and connected we are to nature, and how amazing it is. We spend a lot of our time outdoors with my son, and the simple pleasure of walking through a forest, listening to the trees talk in the wind, and letting all the troubles float away, never fails to soothe me.

The world we live in is a magical place if you look at it the right way. Slow down, look up and let the clouds scroll above your head, look down and wait for the myriad indications of life to show themselves. We are just dots on this landscape, and whilst we don't treat it very well, it remains available for us to adore.

How can you NOT love the world?

What song makes you want to take a midnight drive?

Are you bonkers? I'm 52, have a 4 year old son, so a midnight drive means some horrible emergency that I don't even want to contemplate.

However, back in my youth, with my first car at my disposal —a bright red Renault Clio— I'd probably have gone for this track. Indie rock was still riding high, pop music was vibrant, and somewhere in the middle this band appeared and gave us a wonderful, brutally, view of life as a young person in the current society, struggling to get by, having whatever fun they can to just make it through another night.

Raves in distant fields, club parties in abandoned barns, all propped up with a pill or two, none of these things were my experience but the sentiment was the same. Escape reality for a while, and what better way than to head out at midnight and drive some quiet country roads, signing at the top of you voice.

What's your favorite song about change?

I was lucky enough to catch Florence and her Machine at Glastonbury in 2015, the year they stood in for the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl broke his leg a couple of weeks before and as a Foo Fighters fan I was gutted, but a couple of hours later I was elated, dancing, singing, and in thrall with the whirling dervish with THAT voice who grabbed the audience and dragged us on a stunningly good live set.

What a voice, what passion, what stage presence, I quickly moved from 'yeah I liked her album' to 'oh my god who is that force of nature, she is amazing!'.

But it's not just the vocals or the music that keep this song in heavy rotation for me, it's how it takes me through new beginnings —of which I've had a couple through my life— with an insistence. The horses are coming, joy is arriving so you'd better run as fast you can to keep up with it, run as fast as you can away from the dark dog days.

And yes, I've already mentioned this song, it clearly holds more meaning for me than even I realised.

Share a song that perfectly captures anticipation.

I never really thought about this song in this way before, but I have a soft spot for Talking Heads — the lead singer was born in my hometown — and the sense of building, gentle, excitement, is so wonderful captured in lyric and tone.

What's a song you associate with your favorite person?

It was this or Down with the Sickness by Disturbed. My wife spent many years in mosh pits at the Cathouse in Glasgow.

I knew this track but she reopened my eyes to it and a whole tranche of heavy rock.

And yet, when the selected track comes on the radio, you just trying and stop her from dancing!

Share a song that feels like coming home after a long trip.

I've carried this song with me since I was 10 years old, discovered on the LP A Night At The Opera, and written by bass player John Deacon, it's always been a quiet friend of a track. The type that is easily skipped, you'd think, but I rarely do.

My wife will make a fuss if I say too much but we've both said this to each other since, virtually, the day we became a 'thing'. She is my best friend. She makes me live. I don't really like being away from her too long (as it happens I was away last night on my own) and the gentle love that this song holds matches how I feel about her. She is home.