X Factor's Dermot O'Leary: why Brendan Shine is Top of my Pops

Dermot O'Leary's Top Ten from The Soundtrack To My Life

1 'Catch Me If You Can' By Brendan Shine

2 'The Floral Dance' by Terry Wogan

3 'Ghost Town' by the Specials/ 'Young Guns (Go For It)' by Wham!/ 'I Can't Wait' by Nu Shooz

4 'Meeting Across the River' by Bruce Springsteen/Sundry albums from the Britannia Music Club (including a little bit of Phil Collins)

5 Queen at Live Aid (13 July 1985)

6 'Streams of Whiskey' by The Pogues

7 'November Rain' by Guns N' Roses

8 'Gimme Shelter' by the Rolling Stones

9 'Protection' Massive Attack (featuring Tracey Thorn)

10 'The Macarena' by Los Del Rio (I'm so very sorry)

X Factor presenter Dermot O'Leary's new memoir is based around songs he says are the soundtrack to his life and number one on the list comes from an unlikely source: Brendan Shine.

In the Book  'The Soundtrack To My Life' O'Leary, who grew up in Essex, England the son of Wexford parents, describes his childhood as a "second-generation kid" with the usual British upbringing of "endless summers, freshly cut grass and British Leyland cars  ..."

This was juxtaposed with Irish influences: "The Pope getting shot, the Pope defeating communism, the Pope getting shot, the Pope forgiving the guy who shot him, First Communion, pouring Guinness for old men, singing songs about places and people you didn't know".

While the popular BBC Radio 2 presenter learned and loved rebel songs as a child, Irish troubadour Brendan Shine's 'Catch Me If You Can' "two minutes and nineteen seconds of sheer heaven"  was the only happy one  he can remember from this period. It was always on his parents record player on Sunday night when they would hold impromptu ceilis.

"It's extraordinary that the track that is the first stop in my soundtrack is a song about a middle aged farmer effectively ... pimping himself out". The lyrics from the song are quoted in full in the book starting with "I'm  a  Paidin, from Tulla bhadin/I've got money and acres of land/I'm looking for a honey, with a bit of money/Catch me if you can, me name is Dan, sure I'm yer man".

In the book he describes going to see Shine in the Chelmsford Civic Centre, his first concert and falling asleep. His Dad got him backstage to meet the singer.

"I adore the Pogues, I can't tell you how ferociously"

The second song on O'Leary's list is sung by another Irish man Terry Wogan. It was a novelty hit called The Floral Dance which O'Leary first heard when he was hiding in a cupboard when he was four.  He credits a meeting with  Wogan at 10 years of age with setting him off on his path to broadcasting.

Another Irish song,  'Streams of Whiskey' by The Pogues is cited by O'Leary as significant because it reminds him of the night when he saw the band for the first time in Brixton as a teenager.

"I adore the Pogues, I can't tell you how ferociously," he writes in the book. They were the first band "us second generation Irishers could call our own".

Of all the concerts the presenter has seen the gig was the most memorable: "It was a terrifying experience. For a first timer, going to see the Pogues at Brixton was like mainlining music," he writes. "My last and abiding memory of the gig is cuddling up with a biker and crying into a pint of God knows what as the Pogue finished the night with one of their weepies 'Summer in Siam'.

"The first cut is the deepest," he writes. "So thanks or go raibh maith agat, Shane and the boys. I don't know where I'd be without you (although I do know that, nine times out of ten, I'd have been a lot less hung over".

'The Soundtrack To My Life' by Dermot O'Leary is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is out now. O'Leary will be signing copies of his book at 12.30pm on Thursday, November 13th, in Eason's, O'Connell St, Dulbin.