Soundtrack Of My Life: ‘Ted Lasso’ star Phil Dunster

3 March, 2023

Phil Dunster

The first album I bought

Sum 41 – ‘All Killer No Filler’

“I was 10 when I bought it. I grew up in Reading, pretty exotic! I don’t know if Sum 41 ever played Reading Festival, but I went once and it scarred me for life. It was a horrible experience. It was so intimidating and it was so aggy. Bad vibes. I was 17 when I went but there was the constant threat of your tent being thrown onto the fire, and the bottles of piss flying around! So many bottles of piss, cups of piss, cans of piss, just piss everywhere.”

The first gig I went to

Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Madejski Stadium, Reading, 2006

“I remember Flea – and thinking that his head was gonna come off his shoulders. He was going for it. I don’t understand how he still plays when he’s jamming his head around. It feels like unnecessary difficulty, Mr Flea.”

The song that reminds me of home

Jimmy Nail – ‘Big River’

“My mum was obsessed with Jimmy Nail. Every time we were in the car we would have this playing. Growing up, I thought he was one of the biggest pop stars going because I heard him all the time and my mum had his t-shirt. Then I very soon realised that he was not the person I thought he was…”

The song I wish I’d written

Stornoway – ‘November Song’

“I was introduced to this song because my friends were getting married and they asked me to sing it and play it [on the guitar] when they walked down the aisle. I hated it to begin with because it’s in a weird tuning, but the song is so beautiful in its lyrics. I don’t know how they’ve written it.”

The song I do at karaoke

Toploader – ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ / Bruno Mars – ’24K Magic’

“It starts with ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ but as I get drunker and sweatier, I then go for Bruno Mars. I’m like: ‘The horse has bolted now, I may as well go the whole hog.’ For some reason I think I dance [as well as] Bruno Mars when I’ve had a drink. I’ve seen the videos, and I don’t.”

The song I can’t get out of my head

Gregory Porter – ‘No Love Dying’

“Every day for a year I sang the refrain: ‘There will be no love that’s dying here‘. It was like ASMR, like stretching and clicking your neck. It was so satisfying to me. Loads of Gregory Porter‘s songs make me cry, mostly because my mum cries at his songs and when my mum cries, I cry. Not to Jimmy Nail though.”

The song that makes me want to dance

Junior Senior – ‘Move Your Feet’

“Try and not move your feet when this comes one – it’s impossible. I was on a French exchange [at school] and I remember listening to it on my little Walkman [CD player]. I never left my room because I was in France and I didn’t speak a word of French. I was terrified so I just sat there and listened to this.”

The song I can no longer listen to

Phlaelah – ‘Afterglow’

“It’s that kind of emotional deep house that you don’t know any of the lyrics to. You only know that the tone of it is ‘time to go home’ [at a party]. The sun’s coming up. You don’t dance to it. You just know it’s time to go to bed.”

The song that makes me want to cry

Paolo Nutini – ‘Through The Echoes’

“It’s so powerful. It’s about that unspeakable connection that you can have with somebody. I just weep when I hear it. I was driving down the M1 in a campervan listening to it – we’d been in the Peak District – and I was in tears. Pathetic! Get a grip!”

The song I want played at my funeral

Bruno Major – ‘Home’

“Another Bruno! It’s one of the first songs that I heard when my partner and I had just started seeing each other. It really encapsulates that night for me. It was sort of nostalgic for the future – like our letter to each other. It clearly hasn’t been written for us, but it still feels so personal. It’s a tentpole song for me.”