"This is a record I've just fallen in love with. I've known Miles Davis and some Charles Mingus before, but this is something else. I was given it as a present, and I've just been captivated by it. It's so packed with emotion, and it takes you to all these different places in love: struggle, pain, joy, transcendence, chaos and calm. 

It also feels so complete in the story it tells musically. And to have this whole new musical adventure now, to be thrown into this other world, in this music I never listened to when I was younger, is really exciting."

"How I loved this film. It was what I had always wanted a musical to be. Little bits of music woven through a romantic story. I thought it was perfect, and I even made a tape of the soundtrack, which I still have, somewhere in the archives. A great opening—which, by the way, I think is the case with most of my film loves—and, of course, the two- and three-line songs that inspired the Marx brothers as well as many others, myself included. But I don’t think anyone did it as well as Clair."

"I don’t know how controversial it is in Beach Boys fan circles but I really like the Brother years. It’s as if they’ve all spent years with a genius, learning how to do it, soaking up musical know-how like sponges and then just gone for it themselves. There are some great songs – The Trader is one of my favourites, and Sail On Sailor is one of my wife’s all-time favourite songs. I’m drawn to beauty in music. You can put three chords together and it does something weird to me. It feels a little bit like magic."