"The ‘60s things we’ve discussed were a really big influence on me - it almost seemed like an early dream - but then I got into the Bowie, glam rock thing, which was my first choice of things in a way. That led me into New York punk rock and that’s the bit that made me pick up the guitar. I’d played the guitar a bit, but along with Television, Talking Heads made me want to be in a band and that whole scene inspired me much more than English punk rock. That time very much felt like a new chapter - ‘out with the old, and in with the new’ - and I guess that’s what punk rock was, but I thought a lot of the English punk bands were a bit crap. There were a few good ones and a lot of people talk about The Clash and The Pistols, but for me it was Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, MC5, New York Dolls and Iggy Pop. I loved all that stuff and it somehow seemed to fit with glam rock, with Bowie, Roxy Music and Marc Bolan and led me into Talking Heads and that whole thing. When I was an unemployed kid I’d get the bus into town, wander around and meet loads of people who wanted to form bands. There weren’t many people into The Velvet Underground back then, which I was at the time and I was a bit of a misfit in many ways. Matthew Street in Liverpool was a run-down area of empty warehouses then and there was nothing much there, but I met a lot of likeminded people around a warehouse called The Liverpool School of Music, Dream, Art and Pun and that was where I first met a lot of the guys who ended up in my first band. Opposite to that there was a record shop called Probe, a tea rooms and a club called Eric’s, and they became the centre of my everyday existence. Eric’s was set up by a guy called Roger Eagle who had been in Manchester. He was a Northern Soul DJ and a music aficionado and was heavily involved in the scene. Although those bands weren’t mainstream at that point, I got to see them all at Eric’s, which was brilliant. We got let into the gigs for free in return for helping them to carry amps and I got to chat to all of the bands that I loved at the time. As a song, “Psycho Killer” really stood out. It was very compelling and there was the whole idea of how David Byrne looked like he was a college professor or something, he was so awkward and gangly, but he had brilliant words. I remember thinking at the time ‘He’s not singing about the usual things, how are these words in a song? How do you do this?!’"

"I could have chosen any of the first three releases by Pixies – the Come On Pilgrim EP, Surfer Rosa or Doolittle. We bumped into Pixies when 'Sit Down' was number two in the charts. We were staying in the same hotel as them. I had seen them on TV and thought they were okay. I didn't get them totally but I thought they were pretty interesting. I went up to Black Francis at breakfast and introduced myself. We got talking for about half an hour and hit it off instantly. He invited me to a gig they were playing that night in London. I dragged two members of James, who had never heard of Pixies, to the show. We were up in the balcony chatting and not totally paying attention. I remember after about four songs, Saul [Davies] turning and saying, ""Have you been listening to this?"" He pushed us to the front of the balcony and we watched genius in front of our eyes. It was incredible – the arrangements, the vocals – Black Francis screams like no other singer – and beautiful subtlety within their post-punk songs. Pixies should have been as big as Nirvana, but never had a cute Kurt Cobain frontman. They were always one of the most ungainly-looking bands on the planet, but they made the most heavenly music as far as I was concerned. I love the surreal nature of the lyrics, that didn't quite make sense. I was a singer and I was all about making sense and communicating, and here was a band that seemed to do the opposite and the results were fantastic. That was quite revolutionary to me. Later, when we worked with Brian Eno on five albums, he would say to me ""stop making sense"" and I would think of the Talking Heads album of the same name, but I would also think of Pixies. With Pixies, not a large amount of people got them back then, as they were too ahead of their time. When Kurt Cobain said that in his perfect life he would have been born as the lead singer of Pixies, many people began to discover them. It meant that when they returned from their hiatus, they were bigger than they were previously as everyone had caught up to realise that Pixies were one of the most influential and important bands of all time. I got to know them a bit more and once went to see them play a tiny warm-up gig in London. I went backstage and was talking to Black Francis about screaming. I was asking how he did it, because when I tried, it wrecked my voice and I couldn't sing. He told me that a Puerto Rican man, who was a chef in a crappy restaurant in California, taught him how to scream. He then tried to teach me. At the time, he failed. I can scream a bit more now, but I think I was born more of a crooner."

"The next one is The American President. I’ve been talking a lot about romantic comedies lately because of Sleeping with Other People, and you know, I’m listing all my favorite rom-coms, and you’re talking about When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and things like that, that could just as easily be on this list for me; I watch those movies all the time and love them. But I realized it took me a second to realize that The American President is a romantic comedy, because it has a political angle, and it’s got that [Aaron] Sorkin dialogue. But it’s directed by Rob Reiner, and ultimately it’s just a full-on love story between these two people that also has snappy banter and comedic scenes. I think Annette Bening gives one of the best comedic performances of her career; she’s so specific. There’s a scene where, it’s like before her first date with the president, played by Michael Douglas, and she’s sitting in the office and she’s tapping her pen on the desk. The guy says to her, “What’s up? You got a hot date tonight?” and then she does this move where she goes to put the pen in a jar, and the whole jar falls over. There was something so effortless and so specific about that to me; it’s a moment that jumps out at me, in terms of making the work you’re doing funny, but still feeling in the moment. I don’t know how many times she shot that scene, but it looks so natural. When I watch it, I find it hard to believe that it wasn’t really an accident that she knocked over that jar, and that’s incredible. I love that movie, and I love Annette Bening. And her hair. And her shoulders, her shoulder muscles when she’s dancing with the president in that blue dress. These are all things I aspire to."

"[sings] "I got a crush on us!" He's like "vampires came and vampires went, I won't forget this magic feeling", just so geeky, fucking brilliant lyrics, full of cliches, but done in the most hilarious way: "not stupid stuff like your cousin wrote". What the fuck are you talking about? I remember at the time seeing American Splendor, which is this film about Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar who's this comic book drawer in America, and I was listening to Jad Fair, and there's the whole [adopts nasal American accent] "nerd" thing that's a big part of my teenage music taste. The awkwardness of being in love and the geekiness of American culture. Terrible B-movies with Nicolas Cage, that was a big part of my university life, the trashiness and the shitness. I just really like how he talks about falling in love, the whole album's immersed in Halloween party punch, you're just at this geeky Halloween party he's talking about, and he's like "I love you more than soda pop", "you pop on my tongue and I'm so happy", loads of amazing American cultural references, that as an English kid, it's so cool. You get it. I like the hybrid of Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair, because I couldn't say I was really into TF, but something happened, I just discovered that album and being in love with someone, my boyfriend at the time, we just loved that album because it's just so happy as well. It's innocent and happy and unashamedly geeky and loved-up. There's so many times you listen to that record and it makes you smile, and there's a lot of darkness and heaviness in my list, so I would recommend that album to anyone. First thing in the morning, summer in your car. It's got a real identity, that record, more than any other, it's a real thing in itself, you totally know what you're going to get and you totally love every moment."