The Cribs' Gary Jarman shares his honest playlist: from first love to funeral song
The musician reveals the songs that shaped his life, including his first crush, karaoke favorite, and secret guilty pleasure.
Gary Jarman, bassist and vocalist of indie rock band The Cribs, has opened up about his personal playlist in an interview, sharing the tracks that have defined his life.
According to Jarman, the first song he fell in love with was "Only You" by The Flying Pickets, which he and his twin brother and bandmate Ryan would sing along to on Christmas TV show Top of the Pops. It now serves as their walk-on song. His first purchased single was Aztec Camera's "Somewhere in My Heart," bought from Boots in Wakefield in 1988 after hearing it at a disco.
For karaoke, Jarman chooses Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy," a song that gained renewed popularity through Stranger Things but which he has been performing since it was obscure. He knows every lyric to the Bee Gees' "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from their album "Size Isn't Everything," which he and Ryan listened to religiously on cassette in 1993.
The best party song, according to Jarman, is The Replacements' "Bastards of Young." The song he can no longer listen to is Martika's "Toy Soldiers," which he overplayed as a teenager. His secret guilty pleasure is Jennifer Rush's "The Power of Love," a song he says has everything he would usually hate but can't help loving.
Jarman's preferred song for sex is The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody," allowing him to live out his Patrick Swayze fantasies from the film Ghost. The song that changed his life was Nirvana's "In Bloom," which he discovered on a mixtape and which introduced him to heavier music. He admits that many songs make him cry, including Beachwood Sparks' cover of Sade's "By Your Side."
His morning anthem is Queen's "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy," and for his funeral he would choose George Harrison's "Be Here Now" because it's not too lugubrious. The Cribs tour the UK this month starting in Leeds on July 11.
