2. David BowieHunky Dory
It was the first Bowie album I heard. I did a cover of ‘Kooks’ with my husband [Hal Fowler, for 2011’s Pin Ups inspired covers album, Snapshots]. The title Snapshots came from my brother Ricky. It was a period in my career when it felt right to do a covers album and really immerse myself and enjoy it. We wanted to do a song from Hunky Dory and ‘Kooks’ just felt the right one because that’s how Hal and I felt bringing up the kids. We were a couple of kooks improvising being parents!
I prefer it to Ziggy Stardust. I loved Young Americans later on, and Scary Monsters I have a lot of Bowie albums in my own collection I went on to buy but Hunky Doryhas always stood out for me as my favourite.
‘Life On Mars’ reminds me of the family watching the moon landing in 1969. I vividly remember sitting on the sofa and watching all that happen. My father would paint Apollo spaceships. He was really into Airfix models because he loves airplanes, so he got all the Apollo stuff and he built a spaceship in our living room! We constantly talked about the Apollo missions. He’s fascinated by aviation, but particularly space. So ‘Life On Mars’ really captured that whole fascination my father had, which I also have myself. I’m a real space head. If I ever get stressed, I imagine Jupiter and all its moons and think about Enceladus or Europa or any number of gorgeous places out there. We were always looking up at the moon and spotting Mars. So it was a really inspiring song that became the theme to our lives at the time.
