The first song I remember hearing
Stevie Wonder – ‘Sir Duke’
“It was on Beacon Radio 303, as opposed to mum and dad playing it. I can always remember hearing the bit ‘they can feel it all over’. My three-year-old brain couldn’t get my head around what the words were but that melody, I’d sing it over and over again, the chorus. It’s only as an adult I realised what the song was about – about how music makes you feel and celebrating these great old-school artists – but that there was something in that melody, backed up with the chords, that just seemed to trigger something within me.”
The first song I fell in love with
Michael Jackson – ‘Rock With You’
“I know he’s a controversial figure, however back then, what did I know? I knew he could sing his absolute face off. That song, from the drum roll right through, it was everything. I’d sing it over and over again. Mum and Dad had a radio with the tape cassette bit in it and they had this proper wonky old microphone, but me and my older sister would take turns being the lead singer and we’d record ourselves singing various songs that we loved. This was a major one.”
The first album I bought
Prince – ‘Purple Rain’
“I remember watching ‘When Doves Cry’ on Top Of The Pops – it was a breaking song [in. 1984], one of the top 40 breakers – and I’d already heard Prince and loved it because my uncle got me into Prince at a very young age. I had to have this album. Quite a grown up song for someone coming into adolescence, but I was just obsessed with the fact that this song had no bassline. I got it in Our Price in Wolverhampton with pocket money. We had to do the chores on a Saturday, but I didn’t mind because World Of Sport was on the telly and I found World Of Sport really, really boring.”
The first gig I went to
Prince, Maine Road stadium in Manchester, 1990
“I was a teenager, a bit older than most people are when they start going to gigs. I grew up in a very Christian household. Mum and Dad didn’t want me to go to any kind of gigs unless it was ‘for the Lord! Unless they’re singing the message of Jesus!’ So I told a few tall tales when I was 17 and got out the house and saw Prince on tour. I got on a coach and went to Manchester. The tour was called The Nude Tour and I remember The Pasadenas were supporting and I got there early doors and then thankfully found quite a few people that I knew. It was a massive gig, my first gig in a stadium. I’ll never forget the scale of it and just looking at the stage and thinking, ‘that’s going to be me one day. I’m going to do that one day. I can’t wait ‘til that’s me’. I had it all fixed in my mind.”
The song that reminds me of home
Jeff Beck – ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’
“It’s because they sing it at Wolverhampton [where I grew up]. They change the words to ‘Hi ho Wolverhampton’. They play the record right up to that point – ‘Hi ho…’, the DJ drops the fader down, the crowd sing ‘Wolverhampton’ and then back up again. Every time I hear it on one of those golden oldie-type radio stations, I sing ‘Hi ho Wolverhampton’ in my head.”
The song I wish I’d written
Taylor Swift – ‘Shake It Off’
“The melody is so simple but it’s an earworm from… is it from heaven? Is it from hell? It just gets under my skin. And I’d love to dare to write something that simple, that says a lot with very few words and with that amount of sass. I admire that kind of clever pop. And of course it shifted a lot of units, which would have been very nice.”
The song I do at karaoke
Whitney Houston – ‘I’m Every Woman’
“Because, quite frankly, I love that song. You got to have the vocal to do it, you got to have the bollocks to know you’ve got the vocal to do it. I have both, so I do it and I love it. That song is powerful.”
The song I can’t get out of my head
Kylie Minogue – ‘Padam Padam’
“That’s living rent-free in my brain at the moment. I feel like everywhere I go – I put TikTok on, someone’s doing ‘Padam Padam’. I spend a lot of time with my gay boys, so that’s why. It’s using those tantric Middle Eastern scales, the minor to major to minor and the lyric just goes ‘padam’, as in the heartbeat. It’s not even my style of music or anything, but I just feel like it’s in my head and everywhere I go I feel like I’m hearing this song.”
The song I can no longer listen to
George Michael – ‘Father Figure’
“What a loss. Christmas Day 2016, hearing that on the news after having the most shit year where Prince died, Bowie died and then Christmas Day, that news. I can tolerate a bit of this song and then I have to turn it off. Maybe it’s because I lost my own dad and I don’t know if I’m past that yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be past that. That song, George‘s voice and then George’s loss are all bound up in the same thing for me. It’s a tough one for me. I knew him a little. We were supposed to sing together a couple of times, or get into a studio and try something. But then he had two big losses: his mother and then his dog. ‘Next time, next time’, and of course there never was a ‘next time’. I’m just glad we had the great man – what an extraordinary talent.”
The song I want played at my funeral
Sam Cooke – ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’
“I am an eternal optimist and songs that are about hope and change and have that socio-political message tend to appeal to me, even though I don’t necessarily write them myself. Someone always pulls this out at an inauguration or some shit, but I love the idea that it’s tough now but guess what, it’s all going to be fine, it’s gonna be okay. It suits my personality. I am that optimistic, hopeful person and I’d like to leave everybody with that thought after I’ve gone.”
Beverley Knight releases her new album ‘The Fifth Chapter’ on September 29 via Tag8/BMG and tours the UK later this year