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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
As told to Rich Pelley

‘Louis Prima has been in my head since I first saw The Jungle Book’: Stephen Moyer’s honest playlist

King of the swingers … Stephen Moyer.
King of the swingers … Stephen Moyer. Photograph: JC Olivera/Getty

The first song I remember hearing
My mum and dad met at a jazz club in Ilford, east London, so I grew up in a house full of jazz and 50s rock’n’roll. Aged four or five, I’d do an impression of Elvis singing Hound Dog, complete with the knees and shoulders.

The first single I bought
I remember going to this excellent independent record store, Kelly’s Records on Brentwood High Street, aged nine or 10, to buy Start! by the Jam. For a long time I thought George Harrison had taken the riff from Paul Weller and used it on Taxman, not the other way around.

The song that’s my karaoke go-to
Louis Prima has been playing in my head since I first saw The Jungle Book, so my absolute go-to is Just a Gigolo, although I do like to hammer out Walk by Foo Fighters.

The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
My 19-year-old daughter was visiting from university and playing music to my nine-year-old twins, and they caught me singing along, at full volume, to Chiquitita by Abba. I don’t know how I have that in my head, but it’s apparently there.

The best song to play at a party
There’s something about Get Lucky by Daft Punk that makes people’s bodies start moving. But if you’re trying to get people to leave, you need something like A Multitude of Angels by Keith Jarrett, which I adore but my wife Anna [Paquin] thinks is the soundtrack to her nervous breakdown.

The song I last streamed
Right now, it’s Verbatim by Mother Mother, who my daughter introduced me to. I’m a massive Pavement fan and she said: “There’s a lot of Stephen Malkmus to this.” They’re really cool.

The song I secretly like, but tell everyone I hate
We went through that awful time of our kids doing Pinkfong’s version of Baby Shark. There were times I’d be cooking and Anna would catch me humming the most annoying song in the world because it must have stuck in my head.

The song I wish I had written
I can play a tiny bit of guitar and piano, but when I listen to how many changes and extraordinary moments there are in Paranoid Android by Radiohead, I think: “I’ll never be able to do that.”

The song I want played at my funeral
My dad died a couple of years ago. He was a massive Dixieland jazz fan, so we played If I Could Be With You by Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen. So I’ll have that, too.

Krays: Code of Silence is out now on digital and DVD

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