What a tough task. Frankly, it’s taken me so long, I’ve resorted to a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach. So, this selection is my Top Ten at this moment only and subject to change without notice.

Maybe that’s why the tune at the head of the list is more of a manifesto than a song. (But it is sort of typical of a bunch of tracks that I really do like – ‘What a life’ by the Gibson Bros; ‘You + Me’ by The Undisputed Truth; ‘Going Back to My Roots’ Lamont Dozier; ‘Spread Love’ by Al Hudson; ‘Young Hearts’ by Candi Staton; ‘I Thought it Was You’ by Quincy Jones; ‘Shame’ by Evelyn Champagne King; ‘Use Your Head’ by Little Anthony and The Imperials; ‘Here I Go Again’ by Archie Bell and The Drells….) so here goes:

1. O’Jays – ‘I Love Music’

Always loved ‘the sound of Philly’. Great groove from Gamble & Huff,
open-hearted vocals, silky strings from mfsb. Takes me back to the mid-70s
and the Soul Club in Perth or Clouds in Edinburgh. Get it on.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjtKe46OUo]

2. Marvin Gaye – ‘What’s Going On?’

Aw c’mon. Maybe the only tune to ever make me cry in public. Must be genius.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtUMa0FtuWY]

3. Beatles – ‘Long & Winding Road’

It’s hard to recognise now how hip, handsome and endlessly innovative the ‘fab four’ were, especially for post-war Britain. Almost impossible to choose a track from the coolest band there ever was.

Billy Preston on the organ in this clip from ‘Let It Be’, if I remember rightly. Also Ringo proving his prowess on the drums… Reminds me of John Lennon’s joke when Ringo was voted ‘best drummer in the world’. “How can he be the best drummer in the world? He’s not even the best drummer in the
Beatles.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COMsKPeWAsw]

4. Bowie – ‘Life on Mars’

I was 12, and we were in the family car driving through Aberdeen for some reason. Radio 1 had just played ‘Young Girl’ by Gary Pucket and the Union Gap. There was I, probably hoping a song by Slade would come on. (Slade were a working class band – at the skinhead end of mod culture where Doc Martin boots, rolled up Levi’s and braces passed for style. I had Sta-prest, a Ben Sherman shirt and a taste for tasselled loafers that has never left me, and shared their hatred of hippies.)

Then, on came a weird song – ‘Starman’ about aliens talking to you through the radio. I was mesmerised.

And then, on Thursday night, on Top of The Pops, there was this even weirder-looking ‘bloke’ singing the hit single from ‘The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars‘ – his arms draped round an equally odd-looking guitar-hero, Mick Ronson. The whole album – to be played at maximum volume – was part apocalyptic concept, part treatment for a movie that was never made, wildly commercial in a way that could have gone horribly wrong and utter cheek in predicting his own stardom.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LXBXhYgeyo]

Soon there was a rush to re-hash previous Bowie offerings like ‘Life on Mars’ (from the albm ‘Hunky Dory’, before Bowie honed his rockstar persona). It still shows the magpie eclecticism that helped make Bowie one of the most restless and innovative rock-n-rollers: philosophy, mickey mouse, and the damp soul of post-war English working class blues rolled up with Rick Wakeman on piano and a full scale orchestra.

The youtube clip itself is a low-rent, after-the-event film from Mick Rock – legendary lensman from the glam rock era – which showcases Bowie’s flame-red mullet more than the song, but what a song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTyi0_Uq-0c]

Here’s also some candid Super-8 footage from the Ziggy tour…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxNr2jvo5Pw]

5. Jacques Brel – ‘Les Chansons de Vieux Amants’

I suppose this is just another thread that leads from Bowie’s high quality scavenging. He released Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’ as a B-side to ‘Sorrow’ from ‘Pin-Ups’ and, famously, performed ‘My Death’ live in his Ziggy phase.

Also I saw a stage play in the late 70s called ‘Jaques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris’, starring and directed by the great Scottish actor Maurice Roeves. I took a girl to see it, who I’d later marry. (She was maybe the only young woman in my home town who might have even pretended to enjoy something like this. So it must have been destiny, he said mistakenly.) I’ve loved just about every Brel song ever since, though.

It’s possible you may not dig the Belgian maestro’s own sweaty, toothy, gallic performances. Check out great covers by Scott Walker, Terry Jacks, Alex Harvey, Mich en Scene and Marc Almond.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1DpjXQUDsI]

6. Billie Holiday – ‘Any Old Time’

My Mum was huge fan of Billie & Ella, but I probably got into the great female song stylists through The Associates’ maverick cover of ‘Gloomy Sunday’. It’s a song legendarily associated with self-destruction, tragically played out for real in the case of both Billie Holiday and Scottish pop icon Billy Mackenzie.

If you come to the track through The Associates, Billie Holiday’s 1941 hit takes you by surprise. Bjork was asked to perform the song for an American show and assumed Mackenzie’s outrageous key change is in the original song. It isn’t.

Perversely, I love this track – not for Billie’s vocal – but for the sleek wind-section. It reminds me of old photos of my folks and their friends at tea dances in their youth. Can’t you just smell the brilliantine?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GxPpTf97VI]

7. Ferry/Roxy – ‘Song for Europe’

Talking of ‘serpentine sleekness was always my weakness’, there’s Bryan Ferry, architect of the ultimate rock-art band Roxy Music. This is my favourite track from the album ‘Stranded’ – NME’s album of the year in 1973. The Roxy album covers featured sultry young women wearing not a lot, and had to be wrapped in brown paper in our devoutly catholic household in case my mother threw them in the bin….

Here’s Roxy live in 1974 with Ferry in a tux and bow-tie. That’s class.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=IS8Sa2HDxcc]

8. James Grant – ‘Walk the Last Mile’

Been a huge fan of James’ work since the early days of SMARTS. We went on a family camping holiday to France and Becca had a Fisher Price tape player. Toddler Becca forced us to play the ‘Maurice & Doris’ cassete about two naughty hamsters constantly. (Teep, teep, she would say insistently.) Occasionally, we could put on one of the few music cassetes we’d brought with us. My fave was Love & Money’s ‘Strange Kinda Love’ – a masterstroke of melody, world-class lyricism and godlike guitar playing – which included the track ‘Walk the Last Mile’.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y4Kl7_4zos]

So, strangely enough, when I first met James a while back, I was surprised to find that he’s just an ordinary bloke. A genius, definitely. One of the greatest songwriters to grace the planet, certainly. But also, in his own words ‘just an ordinary man’. Now that is weird. If you see any of his music in a shop, buy it.

Here’s James/Love & Money in the 90s with Strange Kind of Love – what a quiff – but a cool song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnukxmZXE8]

9. Sylvian / Sakamoto – ‘Forbidden Colours’

The theme song from the movie ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’, drawn from Ryuchi Sakamoto’s masterful soundtrack to the movie (in which the composer also starred as Captain Yonoi.) We went to see David Sylvian recently in Berlin – his new stuff is suitably moody, middle-aged and (he thinks) spiritual. (So much so, that Lou managed to doze off during a couple of numbers.) I think it’s spiritual in the sense it’s great late night music to enjoy with a single malt…

Here’s the classic clip with Sylvian – before he got all guru on us – cut into footage from the film:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1YkHJJi-tc]

Or see Ryuchi Sakamoto playing the tune live:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwkuS9FlB7M]

10. Trashcan Sinatras – ‘Wild Mountain Side’

This isn’t really my 10th favourite song. (Although it is a great song.) I’ve been passionate about any number of Scottish bands. The jingly-jangly guitar bands like Roddy Frame’s Aztec Camera; the Bacharach-level class of Gary Clark/Danny Wilson; the sporadic Blue Nile… with Simple Minds, Hue&Cry and Deacon Blue and Mackenzie and the Associates all mixed up in what looked like a golden age of Scottish pop songwriting.

I remember seeing the Trashcans live a few years back and, as frontman Francis Reader started ‘Funny’ someone called out ‘The man’s a genius’. And he laughed.

So, for me, this song from the Trashcans is emblematic of the talent of so many great Scottish bands, and their commercial travails. I saw The Trashcans play it live at this year’s Connect and it was magic.

Because Eddi Reader (Trashcan frontman Francis Reader’s sister) included this on her Robert Burns’ album, some people assume it’s a Burns’ poem or at least a trad song. The song was written (in this century) by The Trashcans’ John Douglas while nursing a brandy and port in Kilmarnock. It was played at the opening of the Scottish Parliament.

Should it be the new Scottish national anthem? ‘Beauty is within grasp?’ Oh yes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSuL9JB-Uy4]

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