Denise Lewis names songs that have shaped her life, from Queen to Coldplay

Denise Lewis has outlined a personal playlist of songs that have meant something to her, naming tracks from Queen, Whitney Houston, Coldplay and others.

She recalls first falling for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody after seeing the video on Top of the Pops, and buying Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell from a record shop in Wolverhampton. At a recent Soccer Aid karaoke she sang I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston and says she received a standing ovation.

Lewis says she knows every lyric to a-ha’s Take on Me and The Sun Always Shines on TV, and that Cameo’s Candy is the song she and her friends take over the dancefloor to. She describes Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade as a song she can no longer listen to after “50‑plus years” of hearing it in shops, and admits she secretly likes My Heart Will Go On by Céline Dion. She singles out Whitney Houston’s One Moment in Time, released around the 1988 Olympics, as the song that fuelled her ambition to win an Olympic gold medal; Savage by Megan Thee Stallion gets her up in the morning, while Coldplay’s The Scientist makes her tearful — she says she was “blubbing like a baby” when she saw them recently. For a funeral she imagines My Way by Frank Sinatra, though she adds she is “living for ever.”

The piece notes Lewis is working with Scottish Widows to help women ensure career breaks do not impact their financial futures.

Key Topics

Culture, Denise Lewis, Whitney Houston, Coldplay, Queen, Soccer Aid