Sandesh Gulhane MSP: Political Spin

The Glasgow MSP on his love of grime… even though most people expect him to prefer Ed Sheeran.

What was the first record you bought?

The Beatles’ White Album. I was very late to buying stuff, so I was older and I knew what good music was at that point. Then I found I Am The Walrus, which I have to say is one of the most weird and odd songs I’ve ever heard, and yet I just loved it.

What record will always get you on the dance floor?

The biggest one is Forgot About Dre. That piano starts and that’s it. Whatever I’m doing, drop, stop, let’s move.

What is your karaoke song?

I can’t sing to save my life, so I try to pick songs where other people are likely to sing. For example, during the World Cup it would definitely be Sweet Caroline.

What song was your first dance at your wedding?

It was a medley, which included Michael Jackson. The reason that we did it was because we had many weddings. We got married in India, but when we got back to the United Kingdom, that didn’t count as a real wedding, so we had to have another formal wedding. But we also had a reception here for the people couldn’t make it, so we tried to do a fusion of Indian, Scottish, English music into one big dancey song.

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

I’ve got two children – we could go through a whole number of them. Baby Shark, that was awful. And then there’s that frog one. Do you remember the frog ringtone?

Crazy Frog?

That’s the one. God, that was bad. But with my kids there’s one which was Cocomelon. What were they singing? Thank God it’s gone out my head. It was so bad that I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I was sitting in the health committee, and I couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying because it just wouldn’t stop.

What about a record you’re embarrassed to own?

Oh, there’s no embarrassment. I’m proud of all the Kylie and Take That that I have in my collection. I’m not a gig person, I had never gone to a gig until I met my wife and she was just like, “what’s wrong with you?” My first and only gigs were Kylie and Take That.

Is there a band you’d like to see live?

Dead or alive, is the question. I would love to have gone to see Michael Jackson. That would have been some con-cert. I’d quite like to go see Ed Sheeran. He just seems like a nice guy who does some really crazy stuff with that loop that he’s got.

This started off quite cool with grime and Dre, and now we’ve landed on Kylie and Ed Sheeran…

It’s eclectic! Unfortunately, there’s not much I don’t like. I was really into The Prodigy at one point. There is a time and a place for heavy metal. There’s a time and a place for someone just screaming into the microphone. I re-member when I was playing rugby, sometimes you listen to that just to get yourself in the mood. At the moment I love putting on my headphones just going for a walk, listening to grime as I’m doing that. It’s just really nice. And no one would ever consider that that’s what I was listening to.

What do you think people think you listen to?

I imagine people reckon that I listen to lots of Indian music and probably pop, safer genres of music. Ed Sheeran, Kylie… That’s what people think I listen to, so whenever they walk into the office, they’re like, “what the hell is that?” I was trying to introduce one of the guys down the way to Stormzy and into a little bit of grime. He just he said he couldn’t understand the words, which I thought was so insane. But yeah, there you go. No class, some people.