Desert Island Discs

Let’s play Desert Island Discs

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

"Eight tracks, a book and a luxury item: what would you take to a desert island?" is how the BBC introduce their long-running classic radio program. In the same way ‘google’ has become a verb, so your ‘desert island discs’ has become a thing, whether or not you've heard a single episode. So - here's my suggestion - let's play this thing together.

Rules - have a listen to a couple of episodes

Typically for the BBC they are all there. Find your favourite person. Get a feel for the format. It's been going since 1942 when the first piece of music was Chopin’s Étude No.12 in C minor chosen by Vic Oliver, actor and musician, the first castaway. It's been going ever since - amazing in itself and the format is flexible enough that it's still working. Read the history here

Next-plan your own

(just in case the BBC producers get in touch!)

The rules:

• 10 tracks that have lifetime significance for you (I have bent the rules, 8 is too few)
• One book (you already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare)
• One luxury item
• Finally, answer the question: how would you cope with the isolation?

The format turns out to be a surprisingly good way of seguing into the guest's lives. Here's a couple of my choices to listen to, followed by my Desert Island Discs.

You may know Charlie Brooker from Black Mirror (and if you haven't watched all available series, shame on you! go enjoy all episodes on Netflicks) and his recent Desert Island Discs are not a bad place to start with. Do please listen from the beginning - the opening waves and music are instantly recognisable and nostalgic to any Brit, but on the webpage you can jump forward, see the choices in one and the choice of book (Galapagos by Kurt Vonegut) and luxury item (Nintendo Switch). I completely get his second choice of music, but also completely get that you may not! He gets total nerd status for his third! His last choice made me think of 'Cats and Dogs' by Camille because my son Tom used to find it hilarious and insisted we play it over and over in the car, I wish there had been space to include it in my ten (below).

If you don't fall in love with Naomi Klein in the first few minutes and after her first choice of music, you have neither head nor heart. Her choices of music are rather more predictable but her book and luxury item are a surprisingly sensible choice given the supposed destination. Maybe she took the invitation too literally?

And you can download any episode right back to 1942.

To play this let's do two things - say which is your favourite episode (mine is Charlie Brooker’s) and then attempt it yourself and link it to this card below in the comments. It's harder than you think! It’s a great way to get some good music recommendations, and a great way to get to know someone.

My Desert Island Discs

1. Neat Neat Neat by The Damned - the very first single I bought from a market stall Andy's Records in Cambridge market, and was the cause of having the piss ripped out of me, but I loved it and recently had it bought by my partner and is framed and on the wall after a play round a friend's house who still has a record player. It has to stand in for that whole first generation of punk - Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, the fore-runners, New York Dolls, Iggy and the Stooges, Bowie and then the whole explosive scene that came out of punk - hardcore, new wave, post-punk - too many to name.

2. Before punk, classical or so-called serious music was a first love. Sibelius' Violin Concerto played by Isaac Stern was the first classical record I played simply for myself and played over and over - letting the icy Scandinavian landscape in. To this day I can hear the tonal differences when other violinists play it. It's stunningly difficult and the first performance was a disaster and the piece nearly never got to the solid place it now has in the repetoire. I know it note for note. Give it a listen, even if you think you don't like classical.

3. In some ways I still miss the oboe (maybe not the long hours of practice). There's a moment in a James Brown half hour track when he turns to his sidekick and says,"that horn, why's it black?... oh, it's an oboe?" except he pronounces it closer to the French haubois. I wish it was a more versatile instrument - it doesn't really lend itself to jazz or pop, though Roxy Music's Brian Eno used it, and it makes good melancholic backgrounds. I will never play it again, but it was important to me. A high point was playing in Kings' Chapel in the Cambridge Philharmonic as my teacher performed Richard Strauss' Oboe Concerto, a wonderfully fluid and floating evocation of a time past.

4. The whole of Linton Kwesi Johnson's output. Dub poet, thoughtful man, activist - he's just not respected enough. If I have to choose one track it would have to be the seminal Sonny's Letah. I met him once, in a circumstance that he'd probably want to forget - the school I was teaching in was very white racist Bermondsey. He came, performed Ingland is a Bitch and the kids hated him. The atmosphere was dreadful. The English department were really annoyed as a science teacher had arranged the whole thing and hadn't given us warning so we could have at least introduced his work to the pupils. I brought in albums to sign but he ended up walking out, so that didn't happen. LKJ has to also stand in for a lifetime's love of reggae, dancehall and dub.

5. Portishead - the whole of the first album, Dummy, played on repeat as my relationship with my first son's mother fell apart, scaring him (he later confessed) with its weird sounds, so if I have to choose one track it would be Mysterions just because it spooked him out. I loved the fact that the two guys made the music, then Beth Orton sang over the top afterwards, and they still have no real idea what the songs are about - also check out the other two albums. It also connects me to Bristol and the whole trip hop movement that came out of there, like also Massive Attack and Tricky

6. James Brown has to be in the list. He makes me cry, for some reason, and the one time I saw him, at Hammersmith Apollo I spent the whole time dancing with tears falling down my face. Needless to say, other people kept a wide berth! Difficult to choose a track, but with tears in my eyes, my final choice is the version of Say it Loud (Say it Live) on the Motherlode album - listen loud, get into the bass, get into his range of vocal performance, then remember this is live, this in 1969! Way back.Fire house!

7. Turn Blue is sung by Iggy Pop, but also chosen because it's produced by Bowie and he appears there singing along,'stepping on our hearts'. It's Bowie's successful attempt to ressurect Iggy's career, I'd always loved the Stooges and Bowie, and, really, there should be a Bowie song here, but for the lack of space. Bowie gets an amazing vocal performance out of Iggy. Superb song. Also reminds of Trainspotting, because of the first track and my partner Sal and where we have come from, what we've been through and where we're going. This reminds me of London, of late night buses of a different time.

8. Coded Language by Saul Williams is angry, erudite, political, poetical, celebratory, in-your-face with great broken beats from the highly respected DJ Krush. In the UK hip hop arrived via the world's worst wigger who shamefully plugged only gansta and his own labels, a complete charlatan (a story for another day) so it was a while before we knew how much more there was to the genre. Mind you. we were familar with reggae DJ's toasting, so it wasn't completely new to us all. I have no idea why polymath poet, musician, actor, commentator Saul Williams isn't better known than he is - for me, he's the next generation Gil Scott Heron.

9. Alt-J have to be there. They won the Mercury Prize, and that was the moment I realised I wasn't keeping up with music as I hadn't heard of them before they won the prize. I love love love the band and recently discovered that the videos are pretty good as well, so I'm checking those out and listening to the music all over again. If I have to choose a song, it would be Tesselate, just because the central image is such a lovely one of lovers spooning into each other. They also reference my inner nerd, I guess.

10. Finally Whipping Boy by Ben Harper strums my romantic fluttering heart (to quote Charlie Brooker). I've been through a lot with my partner, Sal, and she and I have shared so much. The song is both romantic but also an assertion of independence, which is fine, but it's not so much for the lyrics as for the wonderful voice and guitar and the memories it brings back - like an our tune.

So, clutching the complete works of Shakespeare and the (King James) Bible, what would my book be? Taking the idea of being stuck on an island and having a lot of time, I think I would choose the complete works of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, also known simply as Rumi. I loved Elif Shafak's 40 Rules of Love and am aware that the short clips and aphorisms on love diminish him, I’ve never had a chance to really read him properly, he reminds me of my time in Afghanistan, and, if it were a dual-language version,I could also use it to learn Farsi!

My luxury item would be have to be a piano, and to make it completely absurd, why not a grand piano? As a child I loved playing the oboe and disliked the piano, but now I wish I could play the piano a whole lot better than I do, so this would be my chance to shine for no audience, just myself. And use it to write songs as well.

I'd actually like some kind of satellite hookup to the net, because, truth be told, I think I would go stir crazy on a desert island. I could cope with not seeing people in person, but not with being disconnected and not knowing what’s going on and I have always been part of a community online since 9/11 (more of which another time).

Over to you!