Desert Island Disco

Most countries have some sort of "honours" system, a way of rewarding prominent citizens for being prominent. Britain has a long-established hierarchy of official gongs, from the humble MBE, through various grades of knighthood, all the way up to peerages. But, as we know, at the top end this system is mainly operated by political patronage and down-payments laundered as charitable donations, and is hopelessly corrupt. It also reveals the bottomless "me too" neediness of those who you would have thought had already summited their personal Everest. I mean, as of today, Sir Roger Daltrey? Sir David Beckham? Really, guys?

But we in the UK do also have an alternative, more honourable institution, which is no less sought-after. It is a radio programme called Desert Island Discs, first broadcast in 1942. The programme's simple but brilliant formula is that someone has to pretend they have been shipwrecked onto a desert island, and can rescue just eight records from the sea.

Yes, records. Look, never mind why they're saving their records rather than, say, food. It's just a conceit, yes? Plus Desert Island Soggy Survival Snacks would not make good radio. And, yes, obviously, the programme was conceived in the days before vinyl, let alone cassette tapes, CDs, or streaming; so by "disc" they mean "single coherent recorded work", whether it be an Abba single or a Beethoven late quartet. You just have to go along with it, OK?

Anyway, every week some notable is chosen to nominate their eight discs recordings, as well as a book (other than Shakespeare or the Bible, which due to their natural buoyancy have washed up ashore already) and a luxury (no, I have no idea what sort of insight the choice of a "luxury" is meant to provide in these days of plenty, but there it is, and no doubt there it will stay). The essential idea is that the eight records are a way of talking us through the stages of the guest's life, in conversation with the host, currently Kirsty Young Lauren Laverne [thanks, Dave!]. Mind you, if this venerable programme has taught us anything in recent years, it is that few contemporary lives, however distinguished, are very eventful, and that eminence in, say, astrophysics or athletics does not guarantee good taste in music; far from it, in fact.

Now, there comes a "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" moment in nearly everyone's life, when you accept – finally, reluctantly – that you will never, ever be invited to select your eight discs and flirt outrageously with Lauren. Oh, well. That honour – not to mention the knighthood for services to bloviation – has definitely passed me by. But, hey, that doesn't mean we can't put the show on right here!

Now, I must admit I had not anticipated quite how difficult this exercise is for anyone who actually likes their music. I mean, just eight records? EIGHT?? That means entire performers and genres, whole phases of my life in music, will all have slipped beneath those tropical waves! You could drown several times over in the time it would take you to flip through all those discs, hundreds of them, sloshing around in the tide.

So, in the end, as per the formula, I divided up my life-so-far into phases that were both biographical and musical; as you might expect, these did seem to coincide quite neatly. Also, after much agonising, I decided to confine myself to a "pop" selection, 1954-2000. After all, no-one really wants to hear the Goldberg Variations or a Bach cello suite yet again on Desert Island Discs, do they? We could always do Part Two – The Serious Stuff – another time.

I did have a first stab at this back in 2016, and took the liberty then of nominating some runners up, but it strikes me now that was cheating, and my choices are so dad-rock predictable, anyway, that keeping strictly to the "eight discs" plan would be a mercy. Besides, this is not supposed to be an exercise in musical one-upmanship.

OK, cue the Eric Coates theme tune and seagulls... "My castaway this morning is..."

Here we go:

We like cowboy music!

1. 1954-61
Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line
What can I say? Lonnie was the kingpin (hey, that's from another song, from a later life-phase), and I was a five-year-old pioneer of the skiffle air-guitar; what I loved above all else was what I thought of as Cowboy Music. In any establishment we visited that had a jukebox – they used to be everywhere, especially in seaside towns [1] – I could be quite the annoying little show-off. Still can, I know... It was Lonnie who showed me the Way.

2.  1961-67
Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High
Crikey! Oo-wee, baby! And check that video! Wow! What riches! What years! I more or less stuck in a pin, but this track is the business, isn't it? (But, phew, please let's sit down now, Lauren, I think I'm getting too old for this dancing lark). Pretty much anything from these years takes me back instantly to Saturday teatimes in front of our black and white TV: Six-Five Special, Ready Steady Go, Juke Box Jury... As kids, we had no real idea of how new all this was, and couldn't wait for it to be our turn. Of course, for us junior TV spectators of the pop scene these were still the monochrome years: it took until 1967 for the advent of colour into our drab post-war British lives, the late kick-off of what you might call Sixties 2.0.

Just another teenage dirtbag...

3 & 4. 1968-73
Fairport Convention - A Sailor's Life
Those prime teen years... Finally, it was our turn. Again, I could have stuck in a pin... The Stones were at their peak, as was Rod Stewart (no, really: check out Every Picture Tells a Story), then there were Jethro Tull, Free, Pink Floyd, David Bowie... Any number of must-have choices (mostly British, I have to say) from that head-swirling, arm-waving, foot-stomping blitz of innovation and lovely noise: the apotheosis of guitars, drums, and sixth-form poetry. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive... But Fairport: I was a huge fan of these pioneers of electric folk, and this track was the first spine-tingling indication of where things might be heading. Best listened to on a mono Dansette-style player in a darkened bedroom, deep in a torrid imaginary affair with Joni Mitchell.

Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Whoah! I couldn't not include this. Those opening bars still give me the chills, every time. Inside, in the secret place where we are all superheroes, this is who I am. If I don't see you no more in this world, I'll see you in the next one, and don't be late... A friend had this track as a 7" single as well as "Honky Tonk Women", and I'd make him lift the needle and play the similarly riff- and drum-heavy introductory bars of whichever was on the turntable repeatedly. Yes, I can be annoying in private, too.

The Essay Crisis Kid

5.  1973-77
Steely Dan - Bodhisattva
University... If I'd known then what I know now, I'd probably have done more work. Instead, I had a lot of fun, which I felt I'd earned by getting to university (first in the family, etc.). Late nights in various smoke-filled rooms, getting to know new friends from strange new worlds, with a constant sound-track of strange new music on someone's stereo. Add an early-hours carton of cold milk and a bar or two of chocolate from the college vending machine, and that, my friends, is heaven. It is my sure and certain hope that the hereafter is organised on a collegiate basis.

The local NALGO executive's Education Secretary assembles the banner

6 & 7. 1977-84
Ijahman Levi - Are We A Warrior? 
Emphatically not! Do we 'ave to 'ave a war? First proper job, sweet long summer nights in St. Paul's, Bristol, finally done with exams and looming essay crises. But bloody Thatcher managed to get me out on the streets, angrily holding up one end of a trade union banner. Oh, and then there was the 1980 Riot... Nothing to do with us, but there we were in the middle of it, burning police cars and all. Babylon!

Police - Walking on the Moon

I reluctantly spent a further year studying in London, 1980-81, and this never fails to remind me of walking home at 2 a.m. from a friend's squat off the Caledonian Road, through Islington and Hackney and along the Balls Pond Road, back to a squat in Dalston. London was eerily quiet at night in those days, and the pavements were oddly cushioned, too, which made walking a challenge. The actual police were always disappointed to find nothing more interesting than lecture notes in my bag, however.

What's going on back there, mister?

8.  1984-2000

Paul Simon - The Cool, Cool River
Like any impoverished person of taste and discrimination, I lost interest in rock and pop in the 1980s and 90s and stopped buying records. Artists I had loved in previous decades were still turning out "product", but I wasn't paying any attention. However, in 1984 I had left Bristol to take up a job in Southampton, and one day I discovered that the Central Public library loaned out cassette tapes, of which it had a substantial and up-to-date collection (those were the days...). Like catching up with old friends, I decided to see what those guys had been up to since we last met. One of the many tapes I borrowed was Paul Simon's album Rhythm of the Saints. It instantly became a favourite, and this track is the stand-out for me. It always moistens my eye when the rhythm and acoustic ambiance change: "I believe in the future we shall suffer no more. Maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours, I feel sure..."  It says there is hope, and that the future will belong to the humblest, now living in resilient poverty at the margins of the First World greed-fest: "Who says, hard times? I'm used to them!" A good note to end on, Lauren!

Which ONE record would I take, you ask, Lauren? Too hard... Do you know, I think I'd rather have none of them than just one of them? As the man said, "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter". Oh, all right, then, probably Steely Dan.

Book:  Oh, God. This is worse than the music. Let's say the complete print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, plus supplements. That's about as close to inexhaustible as you can get. Plus those over-sized, slab-like tomes would make a decent foundation for a hut.

Luxury:  Must I? I'm not really a "luxury" sort of person. Under the circumstances, wouldn't a bar of soap be a luxury? But, all right, let's say an enormous box of pencils in assorted grades, a sharpener, eraser, and some unlined A5 hardback notebooks.

Cue theme music... Da da da-da dah...

Phew. I think that went rather well, although I realise now we didn't even mention the Beatles once! But, no, thank you, Lauren: it's been an honour.

For another time, perhaps: The tinnitus years...

(the high price of loud music...)

1. Apparently the jukebox at the far end of Clevedon Pier in Somerset was the only one for miles, and became the centre of a nascent "scene" in the 1950s.