Three things with Zan Rowe: ‘I never washed my Take That T-shirt … then it started to smell’

This month one of the ABC’s best-loved radio segments is making the jump to the small screen. Take 5, the Double J mainstay hosted by Zan Rowe every Friday morning, will air five episodes on ABC TV throughout September and October. As she does in the booth, Rowe will ask her guests to share five songs they love – and the memories attached to them – for an intimate look at the music that has shaped their lives. The lineup includes Guy Pearce speaking about losing his father at a young age, country star Keith Urban sharing his perhaps-unexpected love of electronica, and Tori Amos discussing her fight to be heard as a woman in music.

Over the years, hundreds of musical heroes have stopped by the ABC studios to appear on Take 5. One of them was the Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney. Here, Rowe tells us about nabbing his autograph, plus the story of two other important personal belongings.

What I’d save from my house in a fire

My copy of the Beatles’ White Album signed by Paul McCartney. I had the opportunity to interview Sir Paul in late 2017, when he toured Australia for the first time in a quarter century. He was keen to settle in and talk in depth about his music, so agreed to do my Take 5 radio show.

I hopefully brought along a brand spanking new vinyl copy of the White Album, even though his PR person had cautioned me that he didn’t sign things, as a general rule. As we wrapped up our chat, I motioned to the record, “Paul, I know you don’t usually do this, but would you mind …” and he brushed me kindly away and mumbled “Oh no, I don’t really …”

As I nodded and walked the record back to the table it had been sitting on, he yelled out, “Come on, Zan, bring it here!” and grinned as I – in what must’ve appeared as puppy dog excitement – scuttled back , record in hand.

He inscribed it to me, a lightning bolt Z next to my name, an arrow to a young Paul inside the gatefold. “I thought you were that one,” I said playfully, pointing to Ringo. Every time I look at that, it reminds me that it actually happened, and I grin all over again.

My most useful object

My digital diary. Incredibly dull but the absolute truth. I’d be lost if I didn’t put things in my calendar: work commitments, deadlines, seeing your baby, worming my cat.

My brain and life are always in six different places at once, and without my diary I’d be cactus. My bestie ridicules me for sending her Outlook calendar invites to our social dates but it’s nothing to do with her, it’s all me.

The item I most regret losing

When I was a teenager, I was a serial radio station competition caller. I’d call so much on the FM evening shows that the producer had my number in her Rolodex. One day after school I got a call from her. Take That were pre-recording an interview, and she needed to plant some “fan callers” for the play-out that evening. I asked Robbie, Gary, and Mark my preprepared question, they gave me their preprepared answer, and my job was done.

A few weeks later a signed Take That T-shirt arrived in my mailbox. That was the prize for being one of the select few to get on the phone. I was 15 and my tastes were veering more towards Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots than British boy bands, so I would wear the T-shirt “ironically” to friends’ house parties, nose turned firmly up at that “rubbish pop”.

I reckon teenage Zan was too hard on Take That. Being so militant about what defined “good” music was so 90s, and so dull. I’m glad I’ve let all that go, but I wish I hadn’t turfed the tee as well.

I never washed it in case the signatures came off, then the “irony fashion” started to smell. Physical music memorabilia are my memory bank, and some of my most prized possessions: CDs, ticket stubs, band posters, I love it all. I wish I’d kept that Take That T-shirt.