Political Spin: Finlay Carson

What’s the first record you ever bought?

The very first album I had was Abba’s Super Trooper which was bought for me when I was about 10 or 11. It got played until the tape was completely worn out.

What song do you want played at your funeral?

If you come from Galloway there’s a tune called Bonnie Gallowa’ which sings about how beautiful Galloway is, and often the coffins leave the church to that tune.

What song is guaranteed to make you cry?

During Covid my wife was pregnant with our second child and we also had a baby, so we were hardly out of the house and we used to sit at the bottom of the garden and the one that always got us singing was Rod Stewart’s version of Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda). The words don’t mean anything to me, but I spent some time in Australia when I was in my early 20s with my cousins and we used to always sit at our barbecues, and when we had too many gins we would sing that song. So, during lockdown, we would often sit and for no reason we’d always kind of cry towards the end [of the song].

What song was the first dance at your wedding?

A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. We got married during lockdown and our wedding was cancelled by the hotel at the very last minute, so we got married with just my son, daughter and mother-in-law there. That tune brings back lots of memories.

What music would you always associate with your childhood?

My mum was a singer and there’s two songs that she used to always sing with us. One was Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken, but my favourite was Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah from the Disney film Song of the South. It’s a great song and there’s lots of actions and my late mother would always get us to do all the actions.

What song do you absolutely hate but can’t get out of your head?

For some reason my daughter really likes Aqua’s Barbie Girl. And with Alexa in the house, it’s very difficult to control, so as soon as she could start to speak, she was saying “Alexa, play Barbie Girl, volume 10”. It drives me nuts. And of course there’s always the Peppa Pig song. I know all the words, and once it gets in my head it’s very difficult to get rid of.

Do you have any song that you associate with your political wins? David Guetta’s Titanium.

I remember when I first started in politics, helping out my late colleague councillor Graham Nicol, I was knocking doors and it was pretty cold and miserable, but I had my Bluetooth ear plugs in and [Titanium] was almost on repeat.