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4 April 2018 (Updated 23 Aug 2019)

As Cillian Murphy returns in a new series of Peaky Blinders, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 6 Music is giving you another chance to hear Cillian's radio series on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sounds.

Cillian not only shares his favourite music, but the life lessons and experience he's picked up on set, on stage and beyond.

So with his Peaky Blinders' character Thomas Shelby being known for sorting out what’s what, here are 6 life lessons we've gleaned from listening to Mr Murphy on the radio.

Cillian Murphy: I’m actually doing a play at the moment called Grief Is The Thing With Feathers and in it I get to be a crow. I’ve been using Tom Waits’ song 16 Shells From A 30.6 a lot to get into the crow-like state, there’s something very crow-like about that piece of music I think. Also, there’s a beautiful lyric in it that says “A black crow snuck through a hole in the sky” which I thought was pretty amazing.

Interesting thing about crows, right, crows have a sense of irony – I don’t know how you measure this but apparently it’s true – they’re as intelligent as monkeys. They did an experiment on them where one guy dressed up in a Dick Cheney mask and the other one was in an unremarkable mask.

The guy in the Cheney mask got into an altercation with the crows, and they told all their other crow friends to watch out for him. Any time he came along the other crows would attack him.

Apparently he did it two years later and they still attacked him… then ten years later after a lot of the original crows had died, their children attacked him too. I bet you didn’t know that?

Cillian Murphy: Steve Lacy used to be in a band called The Internet, which is impossible to google! He produced a couple of tracks for Kendrick Lamar (pictured) too. What I love about Steve is his whole philosophy is he’s very much into recording music on his iPhone.

I get asked a lot by young actors and directors ‘What should I do when you’re starting off?’ and I say to them “you’re carrying around a very sophisticated camera and editing suite in your pocket!” Go and make something and put it up on YouTube.

The same applies for music.

Cillian Murphy: She's a Mystery to Me was released in 1987 when I was 11 or something and I absolutely adored the song. This song was written by Bono and The Edge and the story goes that Bono woke up with the tune in his head then thought that the only voice who could sing this song is Roy Orbison.

So he gave it to Roy Orbison and he sang it.

It’s a beautiful synergy, I think, of the best bits of U2 songwriting with that angelic voice that Roy Orbison had. I was obsessed with the song as an 11 year-old.

Cillian Murphy: I love Beck. I was reintroduced to his song Debra, my favourite from Midnite Vultures, recently when I was watching Baby Driver, that brilliant Edgar Wright film. It’s a sensationally soundtracked film.

What an enviable falsetto that man has, it’s something else! Beck is playing the on 25 May, which is also my birthday! I’m 42. 42 is a really boring age isn’t it? 45 has a ring to it.

You feel like you’re a man of certain age, but 42 is a huh kind of age.

Cillian Murphy: Nearly everyone says New York is their number one city in the world, don’t they? It certainly is mine.

But I feel like the ship sailed for me in terms of living in New York because I think you need to live there when you’re in your 20s – when you can be poor and energetic, and just don’t care.

You can’t really live there in your 30s when you’re a bit cranky and you’re older – and certainly not in your 40s!

So I feel like there is this perfect window when you can live in New York and be uncaring about it and let the city get under your skin. You can just go with the flow of the brilliance of New York City.

So yeah, I will never live in New York city.

Cillian Murphy: Picture the scene... In 1983 or 1984, James Brown was playing a gig and in the middle of the show he called out: “Michael Jackson is in the crowd!” so Michael came up onstage and did a number with him.

Then Michael Jackson turned to James Brown, whispered in his ear, and James Brown went: “Prince! Is Prince in the room?” There was a brief pause and then Prince arrived onstage on the shoulders of what appears to be a massive Hell’s Angel roadie!

He played a guitar, then whipped off his top and did this incredible dance move instead. It blew everyone away!

Well that all happened and someone filmed it! There’s James Brown, Michael Jackson and Prince all in . I encourage you to watch it.

Listen to Cillian Murphy on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sounds

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