"What a great songwriter and lyricist Shane MacGowan is. It’s funny as last night I was going through some of these again to listen to them, as they’re maybe records I hadn’t listened to for a while. Rum Sodomy & The Lash is one I hadn’t played for a while, but I knew it was one I’d played to death at different points in my life, so I thought “I’ll go back and listen to that again, I wonder if it does hold up”. There are other records that I thought would make the list that didn’t make it, that I still thought were good and I can appreciate why I loved them when I was 16, like Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, which I still think is a great record, but there’s something that makes Shane MacGowan one of the greats of the century, like 'The Old Main Drag' – you don’t know when it’s written, like 1912 or 1982, you know? Very few people can write songs like that. Music that is specifically about place and characters yet it seems timeless. To pull that off is astonishing. Also they saved folk music from the twats; unfortunately they seem to have reclaimed it in recent years. Suddenly folk music became violent and soaked in whiskey again as it should be! In a way that the Irish community in London are neither Irish nor London, they’re just their own thing; The Pogues were neither punk nor folk. Shane McGowan’s delivery – he can take a song like Ewan McColl’s 'Dirty Old Town' or 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' or 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and give them a poignancy or life or meaning, or a dirt and raw-bloodied abrasiveness which most performers could never bring to a place like that."

"I’ve known this song for about ten years from when I picked up the compilation album Disco Not Disco on tour, I found it on vinyl and I just liked the cover. This song’s from the end of the ‘70s, its New York, disco-punk and that’s my other thing, like ESG and those sort of bands, it’s the sort of song you’d hear in a weird dark New York club in the late ‘70s. “Like with a lot of these songs it’s got a groove, but it’s a slightly off the beaten track sort of groove, there’s a dirty bassline running along and a cool beat that makes it. There’s a vibe about it and it gets me going, you can put it on just before you go out, or like the Beefheart track I’ll put it on if I’m having a party. “I don’t really do dance music or funk but that doesn’t mean that stylistically I can’t attach myself to elements of them, it’s just a case of finding inspiration in anything, even if it’s not my school. There’s no reason why I can’t hear a song by Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West or whoever and hear an element of it and think ‘Fuck, that’s great’ and relate to it. It’s similar with this song, it’s like ‘Wow, that’s not what I expected’ but I’m hearing other things in it that I find inspiring from the point of view of being in a studio and creating a piece of music. It’s like ‘Copenhagen’ by Scott Walker and hearing an element of that or the percussive element of Kazino, there’s no reason why those two can’t marry together."

"The mythology is that Jimmy Page played on that, but it's clearly Jeff Beck all the way - that personality. The interesting way they recorded the tracks is that the entire band were in the studio at the same time. And Ronnie Wood on bass. I think Ronnie Wood is actually a better bass player than he is a guitar player. The bass playing on that record is just great! You can hear mistakes, but listen to what the bass does in 'Rock My Plimsoul', it goes completely against the drums, but it gives it like a slinky snake-like feel. From beginning to end you have this kind of jamming, drunken-keyboard-player-in-a-New-Orleans-whorehouse-upright-piano feel. It's the best vocal that Rod Stewart has ever done on that first record, I don't think he's ever equalled it. He ran out of songs to do, so he covered 'Greensleeves' instrumental, he just didn't have any more songs! 'Shapes Of Things' was a cover that he originally did with The Yardbirds and then did a version here, and tore. It. Up. Such a heavy, heavy band. I remember seeing them live in New York City. The rest of the kids didn't understand, but I was just blown away. I remember it well, the opening band was the Crazy [World of] Arthur Brown. He came out in a mask with his head lit on fire. That was actually connected later to by fire-spitting in the band. I just thought, 'Well that's a good idea'. The thing you noticed that while everyone was drinking, flirting, talking or whatever, when Arthur Brown walked onstage with his head on fire, everyone stopped!"

"I love Banana to bits, but the third one is my favourite, it’s the one that I play more. I don’t know exactly what it is about it. I bought their albums in order, but there was something about ‘Candy Says’ and ‘Jesus’ – maybe because I’d just got the White Light/White Heat album I wanted proper songs, and he delivered big time on this one. Even ‘Murder Mystery’ I like. I’m not the biggest John Cale fan, his voice gets on my wick. It was just at the time that Ziggy ended, it almost broke my heart. I had these magical split-second things – it was like being in love, but with someone from Venus, and then Lou came along and I knew he would get me through it."