So the lovely Aby from You Baby Me Mummy tagged me to do this ages ago. I hadn’t forgotten about it but I’ve only just managed to find the time to write it! All I needed to do was come up with my eight favourite songs – but that is harder than you might first imagine.

Although I like music, and I love a good sing-song, I wouldn’t say I’ve ever really been ‘in to music’. I don’t really have a favourite band or even a favourite style of music. So, here, as they say, in no particular order, are my eight favourite songs (or my eight favourite songs for today anyway, they do have a habit of changing sometimes!)

1. All I want is you // Barry Louis Polisar

I love this song. It’s from the Juno soundtrack (Juno is a great film – you should watch it if you haven’t already seen it). It just makes me feel happy every time I hear it. This is the song we walked danced out of the room to after we got married. It was hard to pick a song from this soundtrack – I really like them all. Another that almost made the list was ‘Tire Swing’ by Kimya Dawson as this was the song that gave me the idea for Toby’s name. It has a lyric in it: ‘I’ve never met a Toby that I didn’t like’. I was listening to it on the way home from work one day and just thought ‘yep, Toby it is!’

2. Feeling good // Nina Simone

This is such a great song. Nina Simone’s voice is amazing. And this is the song I walked down the aisle to. It was the only part of the wedding (apart from my dress of course) that I kept secret from my future husband. We let the first part of the song play until ‘….it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me, and I’m feeling good…’ and then I walked in with my dad to the ‘du-dum, du-dum, du-dum’ bit of the tune. I loved it!

3. Hold up a light // Take That

I’m a massive Take That fan. I loved them the first time round (although a bit in secret because I was 15 and it wasn’t really cool) but never got to see them live. So when they got back together me and my friend Claire decided to go to the reunion tour and we’ve been to every tour since. I just love them. To be honest I could have just filled this list with Take That songs but that wouldn’t be very interesting. I chose this one because it brings back good memories of dancing and singing along when we saw the Circus tour. And because Mark has the lead vocal and he’s my favourite! This stripped-back update of Hold Up A Light,  with Mark Owen alongside pupils from Grasmere Primary in North London has be released as a fundraiser. Everyone involved in the track’s, and associated video and artwork, creation has given their time for free. All profits are being split evenly between the Salisbury Hospice Charity, and the Stoke Newington school’s FROGS appeal to build an outdoor play space.

4. Over the rainbow/ What a wonderful world  // Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

I love musicals and have appeared in lots of them myself. I was in The Wizard of Oz a few years ago and Somewhere Over the Rainbow has always been one of my favourite songs – I often sing it to Toby before I put him down to sleep. I also play the ukulele a bit (although I’m out of practice at the moment) and so I love this version of Over the Rainbow and What a wonderful world (which is also a great song). We had this at our wedding too, while we signed the register.

5. You grew on me // Tim Minchin

I was a massive Tim Minchin fan from the days he was still playing 80 seat rooms, before he hit the real big time. I used to travel all over the country to see him and made some really good friends among his fans. There were a few of us who he knew and we would always hang around after gigs to speak to him. But then he got really famous and started playing big venues and making TV shows and stuff so I’ve not seen him for a while. Anyway, he’s another one that I could just fill this list with his songs but I chose this one because when I first met my husband our relationship grew out of Twitter DMs and emails while I was on an American road trip. I had only met him once in person and before we met up again two months later I already knew I was in love with him! I remember one day, before we met up again in real life, sending him a link to this song and just saying ‘this is what I wanted to say’. And it always makes him cry! We were going to have it as the first dance at our wedding but chickened out in the end because we didn’t think people would ‘get’ it.

6. When I grow up  // from Matilda the musical

Now actually this is another Tim Minchin song – he wrote all the music and lyrics to Matilda the musical. I have seen it twice and have the soundtrack on my phone. If you ever get the chance to see it you really should. It was hard to choose one song from a musical but this one is so joyous and uplifting I had to share it.

7. Jolene // Dolly Parton

I love a bit of country music. I’d love to visit Nashville one day. And what more can I say – it’s Dolly isn’t it.

8. Ghosts // Laura Marling

Again, I could have chosen any number of Laura Marling songs. I saw her live at Latitude a few years ago and she was great live too. This is from my favourite album of hers ‘Alas I cannot swim’.

So there we go. There are so many amazing songs that I love that haven’t made it onto this list. I love almost all The Beatles songs (apart from Ob-la-di, ob-la-da), Simon and Garfunkel are another favourite. I love all the songs from films like Grease and Dirty Dancing, and loads of musicals; Singin’ in the Rain and Chicago are probably top of that list. And lastly a few less well known acts that didn’t make it; a great band called 6 Day Riot and a singer/songwriter called Gavin Osborn who is just brilliant. If you have a chance you should check them out. (Oh, and Jack Johnson, and Johnny Cash, and Kate Rusby, and Norah Jones, and and and…there’s just too many!)

Thanks Aby for tagging me – sorry it’s taken so long! If you’ve read this and you fancy writing your own Desert Island Discs then please do. I am also going to tag Donna at Redhead Babyled, Chauntelle at Seychelles Mama and Jo at Not a Frumpy Mum.