Dougie Maclean – Caledonia
As a teenager, just after my friend Gil and I learned to drive, we went to a little gig late one night in a tiny pub in Perthshire. Gil was a folkie. I wasn’t, at all. This guy was playing, and I didn’t know then that he was well-known, but the moment I heard him, I knew he was brilliant. I’ve lived in the south now for 20 years. I’m married to an Englishman and my daughters speak with English accents ... I love so much about England. But this song for me exquisitely captures the sensation of having Scotland in your soul and only ever feeling truly complete when you are there. That’s how I feel.
Van Morrison – Coney Island
Because it’s poetry, basically. And also it makes me smile that he is so truly brilliant a lyricist that he can sing about pickled herrings and make even that sound beautiful. And I love pickled herrings. One of my favourite memories from childhood is from when I must have been very small. I was alone with my mother in the house. It was dusk and I asked her what the wonderful smell was coming from the kitchen, and she said she was making potted herring.
Neil Diamond – I Am, I Said
My mum and dad played this album a lot when I was growing up. I remember looking at Neil Diamond on the cover; he had bare feet and seemed kind of exotic. I remember my mum listening to that and wearing Chanel – the perfume, not the clothes.
Andy Williams – Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
This is the song I danced to the first night I met Nick (Jones, her husband).
Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares for Me
Because I simply couldn’t live without her voice.
The opening movement of Bach’s Cello Suites
Probably by the castaway Steven Isserlis, who is a brilliant cellist. I go back to it again and again.
Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta – Górecki’s Symphony No 3 Lento e Largo – Tranquillissimo
But it is very sad. So, I’m not sure about it.
David Bowie – Rock’n’Roll Suicide
I’m taking Bowie instead of Joni Mitchell, because I can do very, very bad impersonations of Blue, so I could probably sing that myself.
Desert Island Discs celebrates its 75th anniversary on BBC Radio 4 with castaway David Beckham on 29 January.
