Share a song that sounds like your favorite childhood memory.

Since it's almost Christmas, I'm sharing a song that was an annual fixture during my childhood in the 1980s. It was so ubiquitous at the time that it supplanted traditional Christmas songs. For me, it brings back memories of bitter cold winters, snorkel parkas and flares, sledging in the park, and Only Fools and Horses.

Share a song that captures the feeling of being homesick.

My earliest memories include rooting through my parents'—who grew up in the 1960s—vinyl collection. The Beatles featured heavily, along with a whole load of Motown. The elegiac In My Life, with its Bach-inspired piano solo and lyrics reflecting on memories of people and places from the past, reminds me of childhood and makes me homesick for a time and place it's impossible to return to.

What song makes you feel like you're part of something bigger?

I'm not sure there's a song that presently makes me feel part of something bigger. But when I cast my mind back to the nineties, I can think of a few, one in particular, where a Union Jack–emblazoned guitar used in a live performance on Top of the Pops symbolised something hopeful and defiant. It made me proud to be British—part of something exciting happening in that time and place. Compared with how I see that emblem used nowadays, and by whom, I can't help but feel disappointed by what we've become.

What's your favorite song about friendship?

This isn't my favourite song about friendship, but it reminds me of a time when I was lucky to have a group of friends who were a lot of fun to be around. The song's giddy energy and insistent refrain summons a series of blurred snapshots from memory of all the good times we had together. You can't stay young forever, I guess.

What song do you associate with your favorite book or movie?

My all-time favourite book is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. While the plot—revolving around the spiralling descent of a group of Classics students—doesn't obviously suggest this association, something about the mid-eighties setting and cool, angular precision of the prose brings to mind Talking Heads.

Share a song that sounds like your favorite weather.

Blue skies, a warm sunny day, perhaps near the beach—that would be bliss. Doesn't seem likely where I am, it's cold, dark, and wintry. But wouldn't it be nice?

What song makes you feel like you're floating?

The lyrics aren't easy to decipher, and you have to wonder what an audience singalong would sound like—but the ethereal quality of Cherry-coloured Funk by Cocteau Twins allows the mind to disconnect and float away from everyday concerns.

What's your favorite song about growing up?

One of my favourite songs about growing up from a teenage perspective is Caught by the Fuzz by Supergrass, which hurtles through a cautionary tale of youthful indiscretion and regret.

Here comes my mum Well she, she knows what I've done

Share a song that makes time feel like it's standing still.

I guess this song is about love and longing—feelings that can be arresting in themselves. The languid vocal delivery and wandering slide guitar create a hazy, hypnotic effect that, for me, makes time feel as if it's standing still.

What song would you dedicate to your younger self?

I thought about picking a song from the 1990s or 2000s—when I was a teenager or in my twenties, living in London. But why did I make the decisions that led me there? To find a song to dedicate to that person, I need to rewind to my childhood in suburban Birmingham in the 1980s—too young to go out and watch bands live or buy records. From that perspective, listening to music meant BBC Radio One or Top of the Pops: a band who were huge at the time and a song about crossing class boundaries, escape, and nightlife.