“’Crying’ is one of the best songs of all time. The most interesting thing about it is the structure, as it doesn’t repeat. It’s very unique - the melody is insane and the vocal performance is insane. I wouldn’t touch a Roy Orbison song as an adult because… ‘Why?!’ I think it’s one of those recordings that if you put it in a time capsule aliens would find it and think ‘Wow! Humans were amazing.’

“It’s kind of upbeat and not that sad and downtempo. Roy often expressed really sad things in that Beach Boys type of way, over deceptively uplifting melodies. I feel like I’ve always known this song.”

“Unlike the last two songs, which are all about melody, Leonard Cohen is always about the lyrics as well. I like the implication of this unhealthy relationship that he’s singing about. I read this line in a Joan Didion book recently about a relationship where she wrote ‘he was my shark and my lifeboat at the same time.’

“This song is really beautiful, it’s sad with an upbeat rhythm. So many goodbye songs are sad but what I’ve always loved about this song is its tempo, major key and maudlin melody, it all goes to a form of acceptance through a deceptively cheerful delivery. What’s haunting about this song is the news that Leonard and Marianne had stayed friends and stayed in touch, long after their romance ended. Loss is a part of life and this song has reached so many people through that bold acceptance and determination to live on and “laugh and cry and laugh about it all again.”

“He stayed in touch with Marianne until their death and there was this letter that came out in The Guardian which he sent to her and it was beautiful. So often it’s hard to talk about lyrics other than just repeating a single lyric and going ‘Oh that’s exactly what I was trying to say.’

" Loss is a part of life and this song has reached so many people through that bold acceptance and determination to live on and “laugh and cry and laugh about it all again.”

“Leonard Cohen was a huge influence on me. I actually discovered him through Nirvana when I was sixteen or seventeen as he was mentioned in a lyric of theirs. After hearing Nirvana mention him, I went to the store and got a cassette, I remember putting it on and falling immediately in love with him and I instantly understood why they name-dropped him.

“Once you fall in love with a writer like that I’m like ‘God, I’m fucking shit.’ I’m hard on myself, I try to find the right words, because if you’ve got to use words they’ve got to be important. Lyrics are the hardest part of song writing for me, I come up with melodies easily, but I will be changing lyrics around constantly because they can either be too revealing or not revealing enough - you want to look people in the eyes. It’s the thing I agonise about the most.”

“I could have named a zillion Joni Mitchell songs. She’s been a huge inspiration for me as an artist and as a woman. She was a constant chameleon who was never content to be pigeonholed into a certain genre. From the age of sixteen she’s just been a great friend to me, you can track her life, from idealism to jaded cynicism.

“In this song she’s looking back on a relationship, it’s the scene of what happens after the break up, whereas usually people write songs about the break up or falling in love. ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’ is one of my favourite songs on Blue, it’s the lyrics again and the bare bones delivery. Blue is many people’s favourite Joni Mitchell album but it’s a tie for me, it could also be Hejira, Ladies of the Canyon or Court and Spark.

“She consistently transformed, regardless of commercial success; she chose the path of the artist, not the money seeker and took confessional song writing to another level."

“People wanted to make Joni out to be beautiful, they wanted to make her into someone she really wasn’t. She consistently transformed, regardless of commercial success; she chose the path of the artist, not the money seeker and took confessional song writing to another level. This song really sets the bar high for me in terms of confessional songwriting. “Richard got married to a figure skater and he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator. He drinks at home most nights with the TV on and all the house lights left up bright.”

“When I was a teenager I was really into heavy, punky, angsty music and I had pink hair. I think that’s why I fit in better with the metal community rather than the indie community. Courtney Love was my hero, my mum was sick of hearing her scream and she bought me Blue and Tapestry by Carole King, and they were really great song writing records. At first I didn’t like Joni’s voice at all - I was full of rage - but there was a moment where I got it. Luckily my parents were very cool, my first concert was Jethro Tull and Procol Harum, so I wasn’t reluctant to accept their music suggestions!”

“Patti Smith has the best Instagram I’ve ever seen, it’s like taking to the medium to a new level and she does that with all of the work she does. That record Horses is on many people’s favourite albums of all times list, it’s full of the whole range of human emotions. She was refreshingly not a pin up girl, she was just messy and that to me was so hot, you know, her free spiritedness and power.

“This song has an incredible build from a slow and steady delivery to this abrasive ending - all the other songs I’ve chosen are kind of downers but I do like to rock out, I guess I just like pretty songs better. I was at art school when I discovered Patti Smith, I had a pretty cool roommate and I think she introduced me, I fell in love with her right away. She’s not aged out of anything.”