At Gimmie, we’re massive music nerds, and we love geeking out about music with friends. Since our first print issue, we’ve been asking musicians we love to share some of their favourite songs with us. We always get such interesting, surprising, eclectic answers, and we’ve discovered lots of cool stuff as well as been reminded of gems we hadn’t heard in ages. So, we’ve decided to do it more often via our site.

Charlotte Gigi, vocalist for the punk band It Thing, shares her favourite song of all time. She reflects on discovering a band she wasn’t initially ready for, whose vocalist sounds like a squeaky toy. She recounts listening to a song for over 5 hours while sleeping in a tent at a bush doof, and shares some of her favourite silly lyrics. Additionally, she mentions a song that changed the shape of her brain, a punk song about cats, an emcee that never sleeps, and more.

We hope you find a new song or artist to listen to on repeat—over and over and over—as us music fanatics tend to do!

‘The Electrician’ – The Walker Brothers

This is possibly my favourite song of all time. The strings are so lush, and just the most wonderful contrast from the intensity of the intro. I think the song is about a drawn-out torture process, which is really grim. But I love it when he sings, ‘Oh, you mambos!’

‘Medicine Bottle’ – Red House Painters

Once, I fell asleep in a wet tent camping, listening to this song in my headphones next to a bush doof. I kept waking up like every 10 minutes for 5 hours to various moments of this song, and it was the most comforting thing ever. The guitar tone is so rich. The lyrics of this song, although it’s quite long, are so memorable because of how impactful they are.

‘Shut Me Down’ – Rowland S Howard

This song was introduced to me by a beloved friend and housemate one winter. He played it a thousand times a day. I love the lyrics. Everyone who knows this song thinks it’s the best song ever. I don’t need to say much.

‘Dear Diary’ – Divinyls

I love how soft and dynamic Chrissy’s voice is on this track, and how she sings about Preston Annual Fair. This song is so feverish; she talks about having a vivid memory of a certain day, perhaps in childhood, and not being sure why. It’s like a photo.

‘Swamp Thing’ – Chameleons

This band is criminally underrated. I love the lyrics in particular: ‘The storm comes, or is it just another shower?’ The pacing is so great; the mood keeps changing from hopeless to hopeful. This is one of the best things to come out of Manchester, in my opinion, which says a lot.

‘Epizootics’ – Scott Walker

My big brother showed me this song when I was 12, and I was like, ‘What the…’ and totally rejected it, but it stuck with me. By the time I was 16, Scott Walker was one of the most important figures to me, and he still is. This whole album is pretty massively important to me; like, it changed the shape of my brain. And then I listened to Tilt. Anyway, I love the Hawaiian lady with metal teeth, I love the beats, the phases throughout the song. I love Scott Walker’s yawny-operatic baritone. You can dance to this all day.

‘I’ve Seen Footage’ – Death Grips 

I’ve been in a little bit of a Death Grips rabbit hole lately. That’s all I’ll say about that. I like how MC Ride is on level 11 like, all the time. I don’t reckon he ever sleeps or sits down.

‘Unravel’ – Bjork

On YouTube, there is a beautiful video of Thom Yorke covering this, who is another one of my favourite musicians. He once said it’s his favourite song. It’s so cool to see your favourite artists being fans of one another. The cover gave me a new appreciation for this track, which is surrounded by huger, far less mellow songs on the album. Makes it hard to choose one to mention. I love the way Björk bursts into gibberish… she really uses her voice as an instrument in a unique way.

‘Strawberry Flower’ – 18cruk

I came across this perfect angsty Korean slow jam on the app Pandora when I was also a very angsty 14-year-old. I couldn’t find anything else on this band, but I’ve come back to it often since then. Recently, this entire album became available on streaming, which has been exciting because I never knew how the band sounded apart from this track, and I kind of love how shrouded in mystery this band has been for me for a decade now. And they’re good! Haha. I wonder what the members are doing now. I read somewhere once they disbanded and became rappers?

‘Ambulance Blues’ – Neil Young 

I’m not like a massive Neil fan, but this particular song is really special. The lyrics are so profound, with genius phrases scattered through this almost 9-minute track. His vocals ring out so crystal clear. This song is kind of melancholic in a way that makes you feel nice.

‘Shield Your Eyes, A Beast In The Well Of Your Hand’ – Melt Banana

The first time I heard Melt Banana, I was not ready for them, and I didn’t like it. Then, I listened to them a few years later, and I was so ready, and I loved it. This track was my second introduction to them. Yasuko’s vocals sound like a squeaky toy at times, which is so cool. I really love this band.

‘I Against I’ (Omega Sessions 1980) – Bad Brains

HR’s vocals on this are just on another level. He’s definitely one of the more technically good vocalists in punk music. I like how paranoid and rabid he sounds; it’s so full of raw energy. Dr. Know absolutely shreds; his guitar is perfectly parallel to HR’s vocal through all the phases of this song, but this particular version… it is so good like whaaat.

‘Sunglasses’ (single version)- Black Country New Road 

This track mentions Scott Walker, which is a huge win off the bat. The band is a 6-piece with the usual suspects and the additions of saxophone and violin, which are heavily utilised in a genius way on this track. I love the building intensity; it reminds me of Silver Mt. Zion. The lyrics are very unnerving with the guitar riff in the intro, and it used to make me really anxious. But I came around because it’s one of the best songs of the 2010s.

‘Teenage Lobotomy’ – Ramones

I just think it’s really funny. But the Ramones have like 40+ songs that are just as great, but ‘DDT did a job on me, now I’m a real sickie’ is such a silly lyric. The Ramones made making music accessible to so many people because they do genius on basics, and I love them for that.

‘Bocanda’ – Gustavo Cerati

This record is a great departure from his band Soda Stereo, who kind of put Argentina on the map musically. I love the trip-hop elements, his sweeping vocal. This track is so moody and visual; it kind of helps that I don’t speak Spanish and have lyrical insight to distract. A perfect song, like a warm bath on a rainy night.

‘Cat’ – The Sugarcubes

This is such an exciting song about cats! It has amazing energy; I’m not sure why that is. I love how it’s in Icelandic too – what a cool language. That guitar riff, especially on the outro, makes it a perfect punk song; it’s all so exciting! Björk’s voice is so intoxicating; she could sing about anything.

There’s a YouTube playlist with all the songs HERE!

Or a Spotify playlist of the songs HERE!

Read a Gimmie It Thing interview with Charlotte HERE.

You can check out IT THING via their bandcamp page HERE.