Could change depending on my mood, but it the moment I go with this:
Sweet - Hell Raiser (First record I ever bought) Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (Favourite song ever - and the title's pretty fitting for a desert island) Fad Gadget - Ricky's Hand (Got to have something by my favourite band) Terence Trent D'Arby - Sign Your Name (To remind me of Mrs Stig - our wedding song) Primal Scream - Country Girl (The most played song on my iPod, so I guess I could deal with hearing it a lot).
Just about to post when Victoria by The Fall started up. Might have to have a re-think.
Blimey Jimmy, it's an impossible task isn't it. Trying to narrow it down to 5. I love these threads though, so here's today's picks.
The Shadows - Apache - Evocative, atmospheric and as a 6 year old boy one of the first records I really connected with. The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations - They used to say this record was 10 years ahead of it's time. It actually stands outside of any time. A patchwork quilt of different musical segments stitched together into an astonishingly cohesive whole by the genius that is Brian Wilson. Pink Floyd - Matilda Mother - Syd Barrett's psychedelic vision on the first Floyd album was very much one of seeing the world through the eyes of a child, never better demonstrated than on this song. I believe that had he not succumbed to mental illness he would have become Ray Davies main rival for the role of quintessential Englishness in popular music. Yes - Starship Trooper - I was a massive Prog rock fan until they all started to disappear up their own arse and finally got what was coming when Punk arrived. This reminds me of happy days in the 6th Form common room with hair half way down my back. Down in the Sewer - The Stranglers - Always much more than a punk band, Dave Greenfield's keyboards lifted them to a higher plain. I'd like to take the whole of the first album but this is the pick.
The first thing I would do on the desert island is sink into a massive depression because I have no Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Neil Young, Dylan, Joni or my beloved Kinks
Requiem - Gabriel Faure The sweetest and most gentle Requiem ever composed.
St Matthew Passion - J.S. Bach Sublime. J.S. Bach is in a league of his own.
A Visit to Newport Hospital - Uriel (Egg) Memories of Ryde Castle Hotel, Isle of Wight, late 1960s. Featuring a young Steve Hillage on guitar and Dave Stewart's swirling, dreamy keyboards.
Hamburger Concerto - Focus Class from start to finish. The best band I have seen. Still touring and still the best.
Nights Over Egypt - The Jones Girls Co-written by Dexter Wansel. Beautiful melody, clever harmony and wonderful production.
Oasis - don't look back in anger, this song has been bellowed out, pissed up with my pals more times than I can care to remember. It is also that perfect song where the words literally mean nothing but also actually mean everything. It's how I used to close discos and it's the song me and my wife left the celebration of our marriage to
Green Day - letterbomb. "The town bishops an extortionist, he don't even know that you exist" I could have picked 2 dozen Green Day records but this one gets me
Dire straights - romeo and juliet. Mine and my wife's first dance. The words make sense and the guitar playing/plucking is immense
The Twang - wide awake. Listen to the song and tell me it doesn't make sense to someone a bit lost during his twenties
The verve - the drugs don't work. This song isn't about recovering drug addicts trying to convince one another not to take drugs. It relates to everyone watching someone going through cancer treatment and watching that treatment make them ill. I get it
Requiem - Gabriel Faure The sweetest, kindest and best Requiem ever composed.
St Matthew Passion - J.S. Bach Sublime. J.S. Bach is in a league of his own.
A Visit to Newport Hospital - Uriel (Egg) Memories of Ryde Castle Hotel, Isle of Wight, late 1960s. Featuring a young Steve Hillage on guitar and Dave Stewart's swirling, dreamy keyboards.
HamVeggieburger Concerto - Focus Class from start to finish. The best band I have seen. Still touring and still the best.
Nights Over Egypt - The Jones Girls Co-written by the wonderful Dexter Wansel. Beautiful melodies and wonderful production.
Which leaves no room for Lola / The Kinks, Dear Prudence / Siouxsie, Who knows where the time goes? / Fairport Convention, New England / Billy Bragg or Kirsty McColl or even Billy and Kirsty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v4a6NaU5Rg) and so many more.
Tough. Midnight train to Georgia - Gladys Knight Bold as love - Jimmy Hendrix. Both these features prominently at my wedding as did Saint-saens - third organ concerto so that gets a nod Baby I love you - the Ronettes I am the resurrection - Stone Roses. Two flawless pieces of music.
R.E.M. - World Leader Pretend (live at Mountain Stage)
Before they went acoustic with Automatic, this song showed how beautiful they could be when slightly restrained, and by fully employing the Mike Mills harmonies.
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell Don McLean - American Pie
Because of dad, and car journeys to school or Selhurst Park in the 80s. Plus they're long! And Pie is probably the greatest song ever written, lyrically at least. All Meat Loaf songs are hilarious when you pay attention to the words.
Radiohead - There There
Because I never get bored of it. As soon as it finishes I start it again. The combination of sounds is incredible, and the way it builds up and up is something else. Amazing song.
Grandaddy - Now It's On
The song that was going around my head that caused me to ask this question. Not my favourite band, though I do really like them, there's something about this song that makes me want to play it on repeat.
PS - I urge anyone who dislikes Radiohead (it's a thing here I noticed!) to put on some headphones and close your eyes while listening to There There. If you can go the whole song without wanting to tap the drum beat I will accept you'll never like them.
Edit - the sound quality of the YT version isn't good enough so I'm deleting that link.
Impossible but as I type this they would be; Buddy Holly - it doesn't matter anymore. R.E.M. - talk about the passion. Simon and Garfunkel - sound of silence. SOS Band - high hopes. Oasis - acquiesce.
I like a lot of different genres so try to cover the variety in taste. Feel guilty that I haven't included any Motown or Spector.
Taking the desert island context, but playing by @JiMMy's rules.
It is hard to wrap up a memory of a life growing up in an increasingly multicultural London, with my love of football writ large. There are so many great 'London' songs, and memory songs too. However something I find so evocative of my life experience, and always initiates memories is
Don't stop the carnival. Alan Price.
Agree with @Annakissed regarding Faure. Sheer awesome emotional and aesthetic experience. Needed on the island.
Heart Like a Wheel. Kate and Anna McGarrigle wraps up the need to be lost in emotion like many other brilliant songs do too. This one represents all of them.
Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin would be the representative of the rock, air instrument leaping about great playing and singing exhuberance of this great genre.
Finally a standout recording of a wonderful gospel choir singing Amazing Grace. Timeless lovely tune and something to sing along with, participate in.
Never actually thought about it before, funny how they're not necessarily your 'favourite' songs. This also is what I love about this site... killing time on a train down to London deep in thought about music and old memories.
Lightning Seeds - Sugar Coated Iceberg
Listened to it on repeat as a young kid, used to absolutely love it. If dragged out for a wedding/birthday (no babysitter) I'd ask the DJ to play it as soon as I was 'allowed to' and then wait on the edge of my seat until they did.
Coldplay - Yellow
First gig I went to and used to love their music.
The Wombats - Let's Dance to Joy Division
Sums up my time in t' North when I was at uni. Big dose of nostalgia with this one.
Eagles - Take it Easy
So... the short version is my immediate family had a tough time with illness, work, relationships, money - everything for this period of time... it happens - that's life/family! However there was this "eye of the storm" moment/period where everything was just great... and right at the beginning of that period we were out at a restaurant all together and a band came out and played this song (one of my favourites). I just remember taking stock of the situation and being truly happy at that exact snapshot in time.
#5?... Don't think I have another that I feel quite the same about yet.
Great thread Jimmy; love stuff like this. Have a real eclectic taste and very hard to narrow it down to 5, but here goes:
1. Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode. My absolute favourite band and this track, although one of their most commercial, epitomises what they are about and has a great melody.
2. Society - Eddie Vedder. Taken from the soundtrack of the awesome film 'Into the Wild' (true story). Just love the lyrics and the power in their meaning.
3. The Biggest Lie - Elliott Smith. Was introduced to this artist 5 years ago by a mate and fell in love with this track and the emotion contained within the lyrics. Kind of summed Smith up really and his ability to portray his inner turmoil in his song writing. It was great catching up on his repertoire of work. A sad loss.
4. Everyday - Buddy Holly. Could have picked any of his tracks really. Love his music (and the musical) and the transformational impact that he had on music moving forward. Such a sad loss at such a young age. He would have gone on to equal the greatness of Presley in my opinion.
5. Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode. Had to have another Depeche track and could have picked many. This was the one that converted me though as they left behind their 'teeny bop' stuff post Speak and Spell/Vince Clarke (best thing that happened to them). Whilst it's lyrics are simple, I am not at all religious and they just about sum up the futility of believing in something that does not exist (i.e. If god(s) do exist, why is the world such a crap place?) in my opinion.
I might have to nick that one. When I was a kid, my dad used to suddenly come out with a little burst of, "Ohh, baby baby it's a wild world". He was more shouting than singing, but I always knew it as one of his 'tunes'. Many years later my eldest son started singing the same song, though he knew the Maxi Priest version. Sadly my son never got to meet his granddad, so it always amazed me that they would choose to sing the same song; neither of them got it from me or anyone else in the family.
Great thread Jimmy; love stuff like this. Have a real eclectic taste and very hard to narrow it down to 5, but here goes:
4. Everyday - Buddy Holly. Could have picked any of his tracks really. Love his music (and the musical) and the transformational impact that he had on music moving forward. Such a sad loss at such a young age. He would have gone on to equal the greatness of Presley in my opinion.
A question I really really really hate being asked yet feel compelled to answer! My top three are probably the only ones I'd have set for more than a year.
1. Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand. Possibly their magnum opus? It probably encompasses my love for rock/70s/Queen/Bowie/so on in terms of aesthetic and what it invokes in me. Blame Seth.
2. George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue, as performed by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein. Jazz and classical in one, it's nice and long, and has a wonderful array of mood changes. It sums up one aspect of my time at uni and shortly before in terms of music, and my studies. For me, it parallels Achilles Last Stand and serves as a lovely complement.
3. Billy Cotton - Red Red Robin. It's probably the first song I knew all the words to; and has been so entrenched in my memory and identity (being a Charlton fan will always be a HUGE part of who I am), and brings back all the good times and memories, and helps cover the whole gamut of human emotion, too.
4. Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Take 2), from The Complete Live at the Village Vanguard (1961). Some of the most emotive jazz piano trio work ever. I think the first time I heard this take, I just knew I had to learn how to play like this - it's probably the most influential piece of music I've ever heard in terms of my development as a pianist. And while I do know how to play this piece (and indeed play it quite well), hearing the original never fails to get to me. It's beautiful imo.
5. Wagner - Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I. Every single note is just the one I want to hear after the preceding note. And when it's an unexpected note, or harmonic background, then that just makes it ever more genius and beautiful. It's delicious.
Honourable mentions: Faure, JS Bach, Mozart, Debussy(!!!!!!!!!!! another huge influence on my playing) Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Esbjorn Svensson Trio, Snarky Puppy, the Beatles, Queen, Bowie, The Strokes, Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Marvin Gaye, Thin Lizzy, Strasbourg St Denis by Roy Hargrove... and so on. Jesus. Thank fuck this is a hypothetical!
-----------------------------------------
Luxury (to round out the DID a la BBC): a piano. No doubt about it. No doubt at all. I'd go mad if I knew I would have to spend the rest of my life without ever being able to play it again.
Book: The Real Book (i.e. the jazz bible). Has several hundred jazz standards compiled. If I may be cheeky, I'll get the version with lyrics despite its rarity and price, and possibly ask if I can have it with a few pre-glued-in lead sheets by more modern jazzers like Esbjorn Svensson...
Beach Boys! Oasis! The Clash! The Kinks! Into The Valley (but Red Red Robin wins that out every day)! Bob Dylan! Lou Reed/Velvet Underground! PINK FLOYD! BRAD MEHLDAU NOOOOOOOOOOO! Herbie Hancock! County Basie! Daft Punk! Michael Jackson!
Ah shit all these reminders, I've gone down such a rabbit hole now
Comments
Red Red Robin - Billy Cotton ( do I have to say why?)
Stone in love with you - Johnny Mathis ( my mum used to play this when I was a nipper)
Lovely Day - Bill Withers ( Makes me smile every time I hear it and I make a point of playing it the day I go on holiday)
Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder ( in my eyes the perfect pop song - reminds me of growing up in the 70's )
Momma hold my hand - Aloe Blacc ( A beautiful song that brings me to tears every time )
There are so many more I could have picked and the list would change every day.
( you can keep the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare by the way !)
Sweet - Hell Raiser (First record I ever bought)
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (Favourite song ever - and the title's pretty fitting for a desert island)
Fad Gadget - Ricky's Hand (Got to have something by my favourite band)
Terence Trent D'Arby - Sign Your Name (To remind me of Mrs Stig - our wedding song)
Primal Scream - Country Girl (The most played song on my iPod, so I guess I could deal with hearing it a lot).
Just about to post when Victoria by The Fall started up. Might have to have a re-think.
Trying to narrow it down to 5.
I love these threads though, so here's today's picks.
The Shadows - Apache - Evocative, atmospheric and as a 6 year old boy one of the first records I really connected with.
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations - They used to say this record was 10 years ahead of it's time. It actually stands outside of any time. A patchwork quilt of different musical segments stitched together into an astonishingly cohesive whole by the genius that is Brian Wilson.
Pink Floyd - Matilda Mother - Syd Barrett's psychedelic vision on the first Floyd album was very much one of seeing the world through the eyes of a child, never better demonstrated than on this song. I believe that had he not succumbed to mental illness he would have become Ray Davies main rival for the role of quintessential Englishness in popular music.
Yes - Starship Trooper - I was a massive Prog rock fan until they all started to disappear up their own arse and finally got what was coming when Punk arrived. This reminds me of happy days in the 6th Form common room with hair half way down my back.
Down in the Sewer - The Stranglers - Always much more than a punk band, Dave Greenfield's keyboards lifted them to a higher plain. I'd like to take the whole of the first album but this is the pick.
The first thing I would do on the desert island is sink into a massive depression because I have no Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Neil Young, Dylan, Joni or my beloved Kinks
The sweetest and most gentle Requiem ever composed.
St Matthew Passion - J.S. Bach
Sublime. J.S. Bach is in a league of his own.
A Visit to Newport Hospital - Uriel (Egg)
Memories of Ryde Castle Hotel, Isle of Wight, late 1960s. Featuring a young Steve Hillage on guitar and Dave Stewart's swirling, dreamy keyboards.
Hamburger Concerto - Focus
Class from start to finish. The best band I have seen. Still touring and still the best.
Nights Over Egypt - The Jones Girls
Co-written by Dexter Wansel. Beautiful melody, clever harmony and wonderful production.
Green Day - letterbomb. "The town bishops an extortionist, he don't even know that you exist" I could have picked 2 dozen Green Day records but this one gets me
Dire straights - romeo and juliet. Mine and my wife's first dance. The words make sense and the guitar playing/plucking is immense
The Twang - wide awake. Listen to the song and tell me it doesn't make sense to someone a bit lost during his twenties
The verve - the drugs don't work. This song isn't about recovering drug addicts trying to convince one another not to take drugs. It relates to everyone watching someone going through cancer treatment and watching that treatment make them ill. I get it
On another day I'd stick with 3 of my 5 picks
Great thread
What becomes of the Broken Hearted -
Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
White Man in Hammersmith Palais - The Clash
Love in a Void - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Waiting for the Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg
Which leaves no room for Lola / The Kinks, Dear Prudence / Siouxsie, Who knows where the time goes? / Fairport Convention, New England / Billy Bragg or Kirsty McColl or even Billy and Kirsty (
Omd- Romance of the Telescope
Frank Tovey - Luddite Joe
Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence
Japan - Taking Islands in Africa
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
Muse - The Globalist
Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes
Joy Formidable - Whirring
Jimmy Eat World - The Middle
Pearl Jam - Black
Bowie - Starman
Stone Roses - I Am the Resurrection
Midnight train to Georgia - Gladys Knight
Bold as love - Jimmy Hendrix. Both these features prominently at my wedding as did
Saint-saens - third organ concerto so that gets a nod
Baby I love you - the Ronettes
I am the resurrection - Stone Roses. Two flawless pieces of music.
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Step on - Happy Mondays
Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
R.E.M. - World Leader Pretend (live at Mountain Stage)
Before they went acoustic with Automatic, this song showed how beautiful they could be when slightly restrained, and by fully employing the Mike Mills harmonies.
Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
Don McLean - American Pie
Because of dad, and car journeys to school or Selhurst Park in the 80s. Plus they're long! And Pie is probably the greatest song ever written, lyrically at least. All Meat Loaf songs are hilarious when you pay attention to the words.
Radiohead - There There
Because I never get bored of it. As soon as it finishes I start it again. The combination of sounds is incredible, and the way it builds up and up is something else. Amazing song.
Grandaddy - Now It's On
The song that was going around my head that caused me to ask this question. Not my favourite band, though I do really like them, there's something about this song that makes me want to play it on repeat.
PS - I urge anyone who dislikes Radiohead (it's a thing here I noticed!) to put on some headphones and close your eyes while listening to There There. If you can go the whole song without wanting to tap the drum beat I will accept you'll never like them.
Edit - the sound quality of the YT version isn't good enough so I'm deleting that link.
The wild goose - a song my mother sang to me when a child
Forever Young - Bob Dylan - A song about being a parent which brings tears to my eyes
Everybody know this is nowhere - Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Listening to this song and album is cold flats/houses with the wife to be.
A Lark Ascending - Vaughn Williams gloriously evocative, drift away music
Born for a Purpose - Dr Alimantado. Uplifting roots and culture reggae for when others try to get to you.
Janie Jones - the Clash. As soon as those drums kick in I'm 16 again, experiencing punk as it happened.
Perfect Day - Lou Reed. A perfect love song spending time with someone you love (it's not about drugs)
Happy in the skin your living in - Grand Drive about growing older, seeing the days you thought would never come but being happy with that
That's eight but I'm playing Roy Plumley rules
I'll keep the Shakespeare, swap the Bible for Darwin's origin of species and take the complete works of Evelyn Waugh.
Luxury? An endless supply of good wine to while away the evenings
Buddy Holly - it doesn't matter anymore.
R.E.M. - talk about the passion.
Simon and Garfunkel - sound of silence.
SOS Band - high hopes.
Oasis - acquiesce.
I like a lot of different genres so try to cover the variety in taste.
Feel guilty that I haven't included any Motown or Spector.
It is hard to wrap up a memory of a life growing up in an increasingly multicultural London, with my love of football writ large. There are so many great 'London' songs, and memory songs too. However something I find so evocative of my life experience, and always initiates memories is
Don't stop the carnival. Alan Price.
Agree with @Annakissed regarding Faure. Sheer awesome emotional and aesthetic experience. Needed on the island.
Heart Like a Wheel. Kate and Anna McGarrigle wraps up the need to be lost in emotion like many other brilliant songs do too. This one represents all of them.
Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin would be the representative of the rock, air instrument leaping about great playing and singing exhuberance of this great genre.
Finally a standout recording of a wonderful gospel choir singing Amazing Grace.
Timeless lovely tune and something to sing along with, participate in.
Lightning Seeds - Sugar Coated Iceberg
Listened to it on repeat as a young kid, used to absolutely love it. If dragged out for a wedding/birthday (no babysitter) I'd ask the DJ to play it as soon as I was 'allowed to' and then wait on the edge of my seat until they did.
Coldplay - Yellow
First gig I went to and used to love their music.
The Wombats - Let's Dance to Joy Division
Sums up my time in t' North when I was at uni. Big dose of nostalgia with this one.
Eagles - Take it Easy
So... the short version is my immediate family had a tough time with illness, work, relationships, money - everything for this period of time... it happens - that's life/family! However there was this "eye of the storm" moment/period where everything was just great... and right at the beginning of that period we were out at a restaurant all together and a band came out and played this song (one of my favourites). I just remember taking stock of the situation and being truly happy at that exact snapshot in time.
#5?... Don't think I have another that I feel quite the same about yet.
1. Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode. My absolute favourite band and this track, although one of their most commercial, epitomises what they are about and has a great melody.
2. Society - Eddie Vedder. Taken from the soundtrack of the awesome film 'Into the Wild' (true story). Just love the lyrics and the power in their meaning.
3. The Biggest Lie - Elliott Smith. Was introduced to this artist 5 years ago by a mate and fell in love with this track and the emotion contained within the lyrics. Kind of summed Smith up really and his ability to portray his inner turmoil in his song writing. It was great catching up on his repertoire of work. A sad loss.
4. Everyday - Buddy Holly. Could have picked any of his tracks really. Love his music (and the musical) and the transformational impact that he had on music moving forward. Such a sad loss at such a young age. He would have gone on to equal the greatness of Presley in my opinion.
5. Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode. Had to have another Depeche track and could have picked many. This was the one that converted me though as they left behind their 'teeny bop' stuff post Speak and Spell/Vince Clarke (best thing that happened to them). Whilst it's lyrics are simple, I am not at all religious and they just about sum up the futility of believing in something that does not exist (i.e. If god(s) do exist, why is the world such a crap place?) in my opinion.
Henry, it might make a good cover to cover.
1. Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand. Possibly their magnum opus? It probably encompasses my love for rock/70s/Queen/Bowie/so on in terms of aesthetic and what it invokes in me. Blame Seth.
2. George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue, as performed by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein. Jazz and classical in one, it's nice and long, and has a wonderful array of mood changes. It sums up one aspect of my time at uni and shortly before in terms of music, and my studies. For me, it parallels Achilles Last Stand and serves as a lovely complement.
3. Billy Cotton - Red Red Robin. It's probably the first song I knew all the words to; and has been so entrenched in my memory and identity (being a Charlton fan will always be a HUGE part of who I am), and brings back all the good times and memories, and helps cover the whole gamut of human emotion, too.
4. Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby (Take 2), from The Complete Live at the Village Vanguard (1961). Some of the most emotive jazz piano trio work ever. I think the first time I heard this take, I just knew I had to learn how to play like this - it's probably the most influential piece of music I've ever heard in terms of my development as a pianist. And while I do know how to play this piece (and indeed play it quite well), hearing the original never fails to get to me. It's beautiful imo.
5. Wagner - Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I. Every single note is just the one I want to hear after the preceding note. And when it's an unexpected note, or harmonic background, then that just makes it ever more genius and beautiful. It's delicious.
-----------------------------------------
Honourable mentions: Faure, JS Bach, Mozart, Debussy(!!!!!!!!!!! another huge influence on my playing) Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Esbjorn Svensson Trio, Snarky Puppy, the Beatles, Queen, Bowie, The Strokes, Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Marvin Gaye, Thin Lizzy, Strasbourg St Denis by Roy Hargrove... and so on. Jesus. Thank fuck this is a hypothetical!
-----------------------------------------
Luxury (to round out the DID a la BBC): a piano. No doubt about it. No doubt at all. I'd go mad if I knew I would have to spend the rest of my life without ever being able to play it again.
Book: The Real Book (i.e. the jazz bible). Has several hundred jazz standards compiled. If I may be cheeky, I'll get the version with lyrics despite its rarity and price, and possibly ask if I can have it with a few pre-glued-in lead sheets by more modern jazzers like Esbjorn Svensson...
What a great thread!
Ah shit all these reminders, I've gone down such a rabbit hole now