Guest on tonight’s Take 5 with Zan Rowe is the great Neil Finn choosing songs from Beethoven, Bowie and Gershwin.
“It’s more than a visual memory or an audio memory, it’s an emotional memory that songs have. That’s why people attach themselves to one song or a few songs for their whole lives.”
Neil Finn has gifted us with songs that have become the fabric of our lives. In this episode, Zan sits down with the prolific and acclaimed songwriter to hear the songs that have woven through his. With a career spanning almost 50 years with Split Enz, Crowded House, solo, and a spell with Fleetwood Mac, this is a heartfelt conversation about the music that lifts him up. Neil’s early years were steeped in music, thanks to his family’s love of singing.
“We’d sing while doing the dishes,” he recalls, painting a vivid picture of a household where harmonies were as common as conversations. “There’s a lot to be said for the pre dishwasher age where you did the dishes with family” Neil’s conversation with Zan is filled with his signature Kiwi sense of humour, even playfully admitting he took liberal inspiration from an iconic Beatles lyric.
His fingers dance across an invisible piano as muscle memory kicks in when hearing a Beethoven classic. And family is at his centre, as he speaks of the joys of collaborating with his sons and the deep connection he found in his dad’s record collection after he passed away.
“That’s what music does, it makes you remember the way things felt. It keeps people alive.”
8:30pm Tuesday on ABC.
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