The venerable Jim Bliss has tagged me with a music meme. I’m to, via Phil…

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

I’ve been asked to put a playlist together for a wedding this September so I’m currently trying to create a list of songs that spans the groovy, cheesy, oldie, slowie, floor-filler gamut. Not an easy task but one this old compilation tape veteran feels up to. Eschewing YMCA and Agadoo, spring and early summer have thus far been spent putting look for ‘credible’ crowd pleasers. And so…

1. Check out the drum fills and strings on by Beggin’ by Franki Valli. Also have a listen to the damn fine theme tune from Grease by the same - the only diamond in that turd of a film.

2. Great DJ by the Ting Tings is a bloody fantastic tune, capable of bringing grins to the faces and shaking to the hips of small children and wheezing, chubby bloggers alike. Shame then, that their album is, for want of a better word, bollocks.

3. The Birds and the Bees makes me want to loosen my tie, grab a scotch on the rocks, lean on my mic stand and burble away. I don’t do karaoke but if I did, I’d nail this. The horns on the recorded version are MASSIVE and aren’t done justice on this live performance. It’s amazing played in the car very loud with all the windows down. Fuck you, Johnny Boombox and your Renault Clio.

4. Minus the tedious preamble (skip to about three minutes on the YouTube clip), this version of Steve Wonder’s You Are the Sunshine of My Life by Frank Sinatra is the version I insist they play at the wedding. Sinatra is either drunk or knackered because he utterly murders it. However, the band arrangement is impeccable and a (drunk or knackered) Frank shouting ‘YOU! Are the sunshine of my life’ makes me laugh like a hyena. Imagine the old fool jabbing a finger a someone while he sings it, the deeply threatening romantic.

5. Dig, Lazarus, Dig by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is one of the most exciting albums I’ve heard for years and years and years. And I’m not a Cave fan as it goes. It’s ruddy marvellous and I’m considering glueing the CD into the stereo - I don’t think I’ll be taking it out soon. I’ve sneaked the title track onto the wedding playlist in the hope it’ll coax one or two beered-up uncles into Mick Jagger impressions. Myself, I’m tempted to grow my moustache and learn to strut.

6. Dr Kitch by Lord Kitchener. A long time favourite of mine. A filthy, filthy lyric that makes me giggle like a five year-old but one that should also get the fat aunties wobbling around the dancefloor.

7. I’m A Man by The Spencer Davies Group. Hammond and handclaps - was there ever a finer combination? Gentlemen, put this on the iPod, slide on the sunglasses and slope out for a walk on a sunny day. You’ll feel like a sexual tyrannosaurus.

In my role as meme killer I won’t pass this one on. But it’s nice and jolly - if you fancy giving it a go, consider yourself nominated by me.