‘Unchained Melody makes me want to live out my Swayze fantasies’: Gary Jarman’s honest playlist
The Cribs man had a youthful Bee Gees obsession and loves one particular 80s power ballad. But which song does he say is too rude for his funeral?
The first song I fell in love with
Only You by the Flying Pickets – at least according to my mother, who says [my twin brother and bandmate] Ryan and I would sing along to it on the Christmas Top of the Pops. We now use it as our walk-on song and it makes my mum quite emotional.
The first single I bought
Somewhere in My Heart by Aztec Camera, from Boots in Wakefield in 1988, after hearing it at the disco on a holiday at Pontins in Morecambe.
The song I do at karaoke
Tarzan Boy by Baltimora has had a second life after appearing in Stranger Things, but I’ve been doing it since it was still relatively obscure. The best bit is when you get to the chorus and the lyrics are just “Oh-oh-oh”, screen after screen.
The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
Ryan and I listened to Size Isn’t Everything by the Bee Gees religiously on cassette when it came out, so the lyrics to For Whom the Bell Tolls have been ingrained in my brain since 1993.
The best song to play at a party
Bastards of Young by the Replacements, because it’s exciting and raw but has more meaning than some dumb, get-your-rocks-off thing.
The song I can no longer listen to
When I was a teenager I absolutely rinsed Toy Soldiers by Martika to the point where I can’t listen to it any more.
The song I secretly like, but tell everyone I hate
The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush has everything I would usually be repelled by: it’s overproduced and lays on the emotion far too thickly. But God, I can’t help loving it.
The best song to have sex to
Given how much I love Patrick Swayze and Ghost, I think I’d like to live out my Swayze fantasies to Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. It’s better than Gary’s Got a Boner by the Replacements.
The song that changed my life
A friend’s older brother made me a compilation tape with all this heavy stuff on it – Sepultura, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse – but there was something about the melody of In Bloom by Nirvana that I could relate to. Nirvana went on to change my life.
The song that makes me cry
I have no qualms admitting that loads of songs make me cry. Two nights ago, I was listening to Beachwood Sparks’ cover of Sade’s By Your Side and had a little cry because it’s so beautiful.
The song that gets me up in the morning
Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen seems like a dandyish way to start the day.
The song I’d like played at my funeral
Be Here Now by George Harrison, because it’s not too lugubrious. I don’t want to bum people out with Gary’s Got a Boner by the Replacements.
The Cribs tour the UK this month, starting in Leeds, 11 July.