Either my book is taking an awfully long time to write, or I’m taking an awfully long time to write it. I’ve tried to take some breaks and work on other fiction – one of my dozen or so short story ideas that all sound great but never seem to actually get written, maybe – but the prospect of finishing any other stories while this one remains ‘active’ just feels wrong. Or I feel incapable. But the urge to write something, anything different, still persists. I realised I haven’t done anything music-related in a while, and as I’ve recently been going through the back catalogue of BBC Desert Island Discs, this seemed a good time to explore my own choice of eight songs to be cast away with. Now when I one day feature on a real episode as a world famous author, I can just read from this article instead of having to think.
As with the actual show, these aren’t ranked in order of preference or anything – although I will pick one favourite at the end, like they make you do. NB as well that I actually compiled this playlist in December 2020, during lockdown, when it was easier to empathise with someone lost at sea. I still stand by my choices. They aren’t necessarily my eight favourite songs ever, but eight I love which are variously tied to different periods of my life, and collectively reflect a bit of everything that I love about music, which is definitely the best art form, no cap, as they say.
Turiya & Ramakrishna (Alice Coltrane, 1970)
This covers jazz, which I only really started to get into at university, when I took acid and started hanging out with the band freaks. I believe it actually was during my first acid trip when my friend Billy put this on, and I heard it for the first time. Billy was a double bass player who also did keyboards, and what he lacked in technical knowledge he compensated for in wonky enthusiasm. He was kind of a nightmare to jam with because he would constantly wander out of key, but his choices were so wild that it was never boring. When I heard this song, the piano and bass seemed to be melting together like butter, and I was sinking into the mixture as if entering a kind of melancholy jacuzzi. This music just twinkles, shimmering, like a moonlit lagoon. I drift somewhere like that every time I hear it. On the island, this would be one for those night-time campfires, me staring into the flames and contemplating my situation while Alice hits those keys like nobody’s business. The double bass solo in the middle gets me every time. It’s so expressive. There aren’t enough double bass solos in the world. I’m not a jazz maniac but this is an all-timer for me. Alice > John imo.
Cortez the Killer (Neil Young, 1975)
Neil Young is in my top five artists of all time. I’m rarely able to articulate exactly why this is. So much of his music just seems to be the music of my life – him and Björk, really. Maybe I’ll do a list about my top five artists of all time later. I mean artists in any field, mind you. Leave a comment to show you would read this list (and that you exist). My parents (my mum especially) properly introduced me to Neil’s music around my early teens, I think, and it was perhaps their most valuable contribution to my life – top five at least. Even earlier, I definitely knew songs like Helpless and Heart of Gold, which my mum was always singing, but it’s hard to remember. It kind of feels like he’s been with me forever, but maybe I just don’t care to remember the before times. Anyway, I’ll never forget when I first heard this song. I must have been around fifteen, I was standing in our kitchen, going through Neil songs on YouTube on my crappy Blackberry with the headphones, and I thought ‘seven minutes? That’s a bit long’. Then everything changed. I started to play guitar shortly afterwards. He doesn’t even start singing until three and a half minutes in. This song eschews most conventions of rock music. It’s basically one long guitar solo with occasional, opaque lyrics about the Aztecs and the man who killed them all. I don’t really know what it’s about, to be honest, any more than I know why it never fails to make me feel like my heart’s about to burst into tears, or why I’ve probably listened to it more than any other song in the world, or why I can sing along with nearly every note Neil plays at this point. And I don’t want to know. This song is all the mystery of being a living human being in seven and a bit minutes.
Julie With (Brian Eno, 1977)
I guess I’ve always been a fan of this format, because when I was seventeen I asked my dad what his eight desert island discs would be. I think I’d just recently found out about the show. Off the top of my head, the only choices of his that I remember are Telstar by the Tornadoes, The Letter by the Box Tops, and An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno. Each time he named a song, we’d stop and call it up on Spotify or YouTube to listen to it on my little portable speaker. I remember liking them all, but the Eno one really surprised me. This may be apocryphal, but I think my dad actually said he’d like it played at his funeral. But it got me started on Eno. It was a delight to go from loving his ambient stuff to then discovering his early few albums, which are some of the craziest pop music ever put to wax. Before and After Science probably isn’t his overall best, but it’s still my favourite. Years later, when I was assembling my own list, I knew I needed an Eno but was torn between this and By This River off the same album. That song is glorious, but I went with this one because I think it’s just a tad richer, with a bit more going on to reward repeat listens (important on the island). Like a lot of my favourite songs, its mood is so specific and difficult to describe, kind of shifting and ever-changing. The verses are so plaintive and eerie, but then turn rousing and almost ecstatic for the chorus. I get chills when those choral voices come in on the verse to take you back to the minor feel. I think Eno might be in my top five of all time too, actually. I do hope he brings back vocals in his music one of these days. His voice is so lovely. I only recently was introduced to the song Spinning Away from his collaborative album with John Cale. It was my most played song of the last year, and I could see myself swapping this song for that one some day – it may be his best vocal.
Bonzo Goes to Bitburg (Ramones, 1985)
This song is synonymous with what’s probably the earliest memory on this list, circa February 13th, 2003: my dad’s forty-ninth birthday. The whole family went to the cinema to see School of Rock. Apart from being a basically perfect film, one of our most watched ever, which unites us all to this day, it contains a memorable montage set to this song, which at the time we obviously all just referred to as ‘My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down’ because that’s really what the title should be. This is perhaps the most kick-ass entry on the list. As soon as that rhythm guitar starts chugging it never once lets up the momentum, and because of the slow fade out, the party never truly dies. Joey Ramone’s voice is so fantastic. We don’t talk about it enough. It was years later that I learned the song’s actual title, and found out more about its intended sociopolitical meaning. That made it even better. It does make me sick when someone tries to hide behind politics. That’s a sentiment which will always bear repeating, and if you can do so in the form of an incredibly catchy piece of punk rock, then it behooves you to. As in mainland life, on the island I will doubtless feel the need at times to thrash around and yell and just plain enjoy myself. This choice is one for those times. And it will always remind me of my family.
Show Me Love (Robin S, 1990)
Has there ever been a more awesome vocal performance? I mean, good Lord. The moment Robin S announced herself with that gigantic ‘HEEEEEYYYYYYYYEYEYEYEYEAH’, history was never the same. I smile every time. It’s like she’s booted open the door leading directly onto the dancefloor inside my brain. She is taking no prisoners. There’s just so much power in the way she delivers these words – and they are great words, too. We’ve all been there. So many songs are trying to get at what Show Me Love perfectly distils. The rage of being in love. One of the most infectious riffs ever composed. And the primal fun of nonsensical shouting. My favourite line has to be ‘words are so easy to say’, which Robin follows immediately with an impassioned, strangled cry (which some wrong people mishear as simply ‘alright’) that seems to emphasise the point: words are easy; words are inferior; her love is real; it is ad-libbed, spontaneous emotion; inimitable, illogical, even a little absurd. Again, I will be dancing to this one on the island, and probably singing it all the time too, perhaps to coax the fish as I try to spear them with a sharpened piece of bamboo or whatever one does. The island is going to have to show me love. I am physically empowered by this music.
All Is Full Of Love (Björk, 1997)
I’ve already mentioned my admiration for Björk, whose art I cherish, adore, and idolise in equal measure. Honestly, she’s probably my top one artist of all time, in any field. When it comes to art, no single human being is more impressive to me, nor speaks to my soul on such an intimate level. Again, it’s hard to explain exactly why. I saw her live in Glasgow in 2019 and she more than lived up to the hype. At the end, she encouraged everyone in the seated arena to stand up for her last song, because it was going to be a dancey one. Then she proceeded to perform Mouth Mantra, one of the least danceable songs in her oeuvre. I was one of the only people dancing. Even the friends I was with didn’t dance. They’re all philistines. I still don’t know what Björk was thinking in playing that song, after getting everyone excited to dance. All I know is that she and I were dancing at the same time in the same room, to the same song, which makes it one of the best moments of my life. Top five probably. There was always going to be a Björk song on my list and All Is Full Of Love was always going to be the Björk song on my list. It’s such a complete encapsulation of her artistic voice. The actual music is so otherworldly and mind-expanding. It’s a shame Nirvana already used the name Nirvana, because it would have been the perfect name for this little piece of sound. I think this is the sound the Buddha hears in his head as he transcendentally meditates. And the lyrics are just beautiful. If every person alive were to fully internalise the message of this song, world peace would instantly be achieved. I’m not joking. I would say that Björk’s only flaw was not including this version (the single version) on Homogenic, but actually that just meant that we had twice as many versions of this incredible song to enjoy, so in fact it’s yet more proof of her inhuman genius.
Someone Great (LCD Soundsystem, 2007)
The first time I tried to go to university, it didn’t go very well and I had what you might call a total breakdown. But it ended up being a pretty great thing for me, because in the time between dropping out of that university and going to the next one (where I had a much better time), from summer 2016 to autumn 2017 I got to have the gap year that I should have taken in the first place. Most of my friends were studying, and aside from my part-time job, I had never had so much time to myself. That was when I first started dabbling with marijuana, and while it got to be more problematic for me later, that year, there really were no downsides. I bought myself a little pipe, and every so often, in the early afternoon, you’d find me lying on my bed taking tiny puffs out the window, with my headphones on, and my tolerance as low as it ever would be. I’ve never listened to so much new music. I used to find annual best-of lists, like Pitchfork’s, and go through the top ten or twenty albums of a given year, then move onto the next one. LCD Soundsystem were vaguely on my radar because I loved Daft Punk, but I wasn’t remotely prepared for the quality of Sound of Silver. It was one of those mind-blowing listens where not only was every single song amazing, but each was somehow better than the last. The pinnacle came at the record’s midpoint, around halfway through All My Friends when I realised the restless piano had been bashing out that same repeating chord for the past five minutes – there I was, gazing up at the ceiling, still reeling from having just experienced Someone Great and it was no less than pure inspiration. I fell in love. How could human beings actually make something this good? And why had it taken me ten years to find out about it? The reason I’ve picked Someone Great over All My Friends for the island is twofold. Firstly: replay value. I love electronic music that builds up in jittering loops and layers, forming these vast landscapes of tiny details, so you can focus on a different sound each time you listen. It’s like getting on the same rollercoaster ride but sitting in a different seat. Whereas All My Friends is relentlessly repetitive and simple – it’s one big climax, right for the heart. So I listen to it a lot less; you have to save it for the right moment. Also, ‘if I could see all my friends tonight…’ while stranded, utterly alone, would probably make me jump off a cliff. But the words to Someone Great are so very sweet: an ode to James Murphy’s late therapist. That year, I was fortunate to have counselling myself, through the NHS. It was with a kind, round Italian man named Pierro, and was my first real experience with therapy – the only significant one I’ve had. That was a vital part of an integral year in my life. And this is the soundtrack to that. It’s rare that electronic music has so much heart and humanity to it, but that’s the mixture I love; it’s what Björk and Eno are so often doing, not to mention the next entry on the list. It’s my thing. It’s one of my things. By the way, if you can see LCD live, do.
Reckoner (Radiohead, 2007)
Radiohead was the first music I felt I had discovered. I didn’t inherit them from my parents or older sisters. I didn’t know anyone else who liked them. I hardly knew anyone else who was even aware of them – certainly not at school. In fact, it wasn’t until I finished high school in the summer of 2013 that it all changed. Of course I’d always enjoyed music before then but it was never me finding it on my own; the previous year, I even won an iPod Touch as a prize at school, and filled it entirely with songs gathered either from the charts, films, or my family. I suppose I do have Baz Luhrmann to thank for the Radiohead breakthrough. My sister and I liked his version of Romeo and Juliet, and our family iTunes library included a song from the soundtrack which incorporates their song Talk Show Host behind audio of Leonardo DiCaprio delivering his introductory monologue as Romeo. I guess that started it, but I can’t remember exactly how the obsession precisely began. I know it coincided perfectly with my picking up the guitar for the first time. It’s no exaggeration to say that Radiohead is the reason I started learning music. They totally changed my life. I still love their music, but I’ll probably never be as purely obsessed as I was then, with them or anyone else. You never forget your first. Honestly, I still think they’re underrated, probably because they’re so popular with a certain type of music fan that they’ve become kind of a joke to some people. It’s their loss, though. The originality, the unpredictability, the imagination is unparalleled. And always so consistently good. My favourite album of theirs was Kid A then, and probably still is. But Reckoner from In Rainbows will always be my favourite Radiohead song. Even as a dumb ass teenager it used to make me cry pretty reliably. As with most of their work, I have almost zero understanding of its intended meaning – but I feel nonetheless completely understood by it. I imagine myself listening to this on the island, dancing and singing along to Thom’s ghostly falsetto as I crane my neck up at all the great constellations, perfectly clear and bright, in all their natural splendour, then dying from pure sensory overload.
Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst (Kendrick Lamar, 2012)
I mean, I say Radiohead was the first music I felt I had found myself, but in fairness, the year before that there was Kendrick Lamar. It was my last year of high school and I was big into Kanye West, like most people. But apart from that, when it came to hip hop and rap music I was fairly ignorant, which at my school was quite a thing to be. I was one of those people to whom rap didn’t seem musical enough. My favourite Kanye at that time was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which has some of his worst rapping but his most elaborate instrumentation, and 808s was a close second and is basically rap-free. In this vein, I did also quite enjoy Take Care by Drake, but mainly because I was actively trying to find rap music to like so I could fit in. It was through that album that I first encountered Kendrick Lamar. By this time I was also spending far more time on the internet. There was this blog that I liked where a guy pretending to be Ghostface Killa would write scathing reviews of new rap releases. He used to tear people like Drake to shreds in the most hilarious ways. But when good kid, M.A.A.D city came out, he gave it a glowing review that was in itself a really interesting read. I listened and it blew my tiny mind. I love To Pimp A Butterfly as much as the next guy, but I still think good kid has the edge. It’s easily one of the best concept albums I’ve ever heard. Every song is both excellent in itself while also developing the story as richly as happens in a great screenplay or novel. This song is the climax to it all. I had never seen that done before in music, and rarely have since. I was getting really into Bob Dylan at that time too, thanks to my mum. I distinctly remember reading through the lyrics to Sing About Me on Genius and really feeling that this guy’s writing was every bit as meaningful and accomplished as Dylan’s had been decades earlier. It was so exciting, and also put to rest any notion that I’d been born in the wrong generation or any of that shit. This song is also very long and has two distinct parts, which adds some valuable variety to my island playlist. I’m sure I’ll miss screen media, but this expertly told story of youth, failure, despair, and redemption will serve me well in the narrative department.
EDIT: Mistake!
This playlist is nearly four years old and it’s not until I made this post that I realised it contains nine songs, not eight. I did say I had a bit of a weed problem back then. I can’t BELIEVE I didn’t notice before. Did you notice? If you noticed, send me an email to receive your reward. If I do ever get to go on the show, then I guess I have until then to whittle it down to the correct number. I was going to say which one I’d excise if I had to, but I keep changing my mind. It’s so hard to get to eight. Which was really the whole point of doing this. Who am I kidding, there was no point.
Book
When I came up with this playlist in 2020, I was halfway through my last year at university. The previous year had been cut short by the coronavirus outbreak; I’d been studying a module called Ancient Philosophy, for which the core text was the complete works of Plato. It was a huge, aged, sleeveless red hardcover which was only available from a weird, half-forgotten branch of the library that only certain people knew about. Because the pandemic shut everything down so suddenly, I ended up having that book in my possession for far longer than intended, and though I read as much as I could, I still hardly made a dent in it. It was just unbelievably interesting to me. The format being almost entirely dialogues between different characters I thought was a genius way to teach philosophy. I couldn’t believe how old it was, especially considering the fact that nobody seemed to have really replicated that idea in the thousands of years since. On the other hand, my favourite novel is probably Stephen King’s IT. And maybe the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare (which you get given by default on the BBC show) would cover the same kind of ground as the Plato book, so I don’t know. It’s tough. But I think I’d go with the Plato. Become really wise and stuff on the island, devise my own perfect society, return home a hero.
Luxury Item
At the time of making the playlist, I would have said a guitar. I probably still would. It would be pretty awful not being able to write anything, but most writing happens in your head anyway. And I could always try to fashion some kind of pen or even paper and write on various rocks and such. Whereas trying to build my own guitar would likely be impossible. If you’re still reading this, I love you.
One To Save From The Waves
And without further ado, the record I’d choose to save above all others is… Okay, my heart says Björk. My body says Radiohead. But my soul says Neil Young. Cortez the Killer. 1975. There you have it. Tune of my absolute bloody life!
~ GDH, March 2024
