Soundtrack Of My Life: Ariana DeBose

The first song I remember hearing

Soloman Burke – ‘Cry To Me’

“My grandmother raised me for a time, and I remember so vividly listening to songs of the 1950s and ‘60s – and that was one of her favourites. I remember very clearly one day in the living room, it came on the radio, and I was like, ‘Cry To Me!’ So it holds a special place in my heart.”

The first album I bought

The Bodyguard soundtrack

“That was one of my mum and I’s favourite movies. There’s no one greater than Whitney Houston, and Kevin Costner – not too shabby. The music from that film is just incredible. I think I was 11 or 12 when I bought that album. CDs were all the rage. And there was some company that let you buy a bunch of CDs, that’s all they sold. And the first thing I wanted was The Bodyguard soundtrack.”

The first gig I went to

Ronnie McDowell, North Carolina, circa 1996

“Music was brought to me through my family, and Ronnie McDowell is one of my grandmother’s favourite artists. He was a huge Elvis fan, and so a lot of his sound evokes Elvis in different ways. But he’s sung so many wonderful songs. I remember ‘Older Women’ (“are beautiful lovers”) was one of the songs he sang. I was far too young to know what that meant – I think I was four or five. But I really liked the rhythm of that tune.”

The song that reminds me of home

Tina Turner – ‘The Best’

“There’s something about that tune, it reminds me of home. My mum loved Tina Turner. Even when I’m here in my own home, when I play that song, or anything Tina sang, there’s something very comforting and also encouraging and inspiring about her voice. But ‘The Best’, it’s hard to beat that for me.”

The song I wish I’d written

Elvis Presley – ‘Suspicious Minds’

“A while back I’d heard the Guinness Book Of World Records had named ‘Thriller’ as the top selling song of all time. That would be nice, to have a cute chunk of change from that – and also it’s a great song. But also, Elvis’ ‘Suspicious Minds’. I think that song is genius, especially the longer versions. He said ‘we’re caught in a trap’ and ‘this song is gonna go on forever’. It’s so smart. I would have loved to have written a song like that.”

The song I can’t get out of my head

Dove Cameron – ‘Lethal Woman’

“There is just something about the sonic landscape she created with that tune that I’m just like, ‘Wow’. ‘Sheee’s a lethal woman!’ It’s so great.”

The song I can no longer listen to

Rita Ora (feat. Fatboy Slim) – ‘Praising You’

“That was my jam this summer, and I listened to it over and over and over and over again. Rita, I love you, sis, but I got to take a break.”

The song that makes me want to dance

ABBA – ‘Waterloo’

“​​Anytime I hear ‘Waterloo’, I am out of my seat. The first time I heard that song, honestly, was in the credits of the Mamma Mia movie. There was something about the ‘my my!’, I was just like, ‘What is this? Who is doing this?’ It’s not just Meryl Streep, it had a life before that. And that was one of my introductions to the wonderful world of ABBA. And if you didn’t know anything about me, I am a little bit obsessed with ABBA. I just went to ABBA Voyage. It was incredible.”

The song that makes me cry

Dolly Parton – ‘But You Know I Love You’

“There’s something so simple about the melody and the lyric. Anyone who’s ever had to walk away from a relationship of any kind, or a friendship, it’s not for lack of love. That is heartbreaking to me, it takes two seconds and I’m bawling like a baby.”

The song I do at karaoke

Sia – ‘Chandelier’

“It depends on how many adult beverages I’ve had, and where we are in the evening, but I would say nine times out of 10 it’s ‘Chandelier’. It’s a perfect karaoke song because you just wail. Normally, if I’m singing, it’s because I had a rough day, rough week. And you can scream it out, and you feel better. “One, two three, one, two, three, uh!” It just gets me through.

The song I want played at my funeral

Vic Damone, Percy Faith & His Orchestra – ‘An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair)’

“I’m hoping I have a lot of life to live still, but, first of all, it would need to be a full orchestra. So I’m going to save up some money for my family to hire some musicians. But ‘An Affair to Remember’ is a song from a movie, the Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant movie called An Affair to Remember. There’s something about it, I feel like it’s the way I’ve approached my life. I am having a love affair with life, and it will be a love affair to remember, hopefully.”

Ariana DeBose’s new song ‘Get Up And Start Again’ features on the ‘Argylle’ movie soundtrack, in cinemas now. She teams up with Boy George and Nile Rodgers for ‘Electric Energy’, also from the soundtrack

The post Soundtrack Of My Life: Ariana DeBose appeared first on NME.