D.I.D.

[Music fades...]
Well, Sue, thanks very much for the introduction, and I thought you'd never ask. Frankly, I was getting to the point where I thought I might as well post the list on my blog, but here we are and here we go, as the great Quo once said.

1. Let it Be - The Beatles. Probably this is the song I choose to represent my formative years, my youth, when I loved all the girls I thought I'd love forever, the girls I never saw again, when my musical tastes were formed. From age 14 to 18, I was all about the Beatles, collecting all their records and playing them to death. I've gone through lots of phases with the Beatles. Like a lot of people, for a long time I was obsessed with Lennon, and thought he was The One. But now I'm in my 40s, I have come to admire McCartney's work more and more. While Lennon was being all arty and avant garde, McCartney was writing standards that will live for ever. One of the things I like about "Let it Be" is that there was never really a definitive version of it. I like the single they put out, with George's guitar going through a rotary speaker; but I also love the (Spector) album version, with the crunchy guitar sound.


2. Live Like You Were Dying - Tim McGraw. This is in no particular order, Sue, but in a way this is an appropriate fast-forward from my formative years to my current state of being, as it were. This example of well-crafted country sentiment speaks to me as a man in his 40s, but it's also something my kids love, and when it comes on in the car, they always want it to play over and over. I would never go skydiving or mountain climbing, or any of those extreme sports type things, but this is just a musical way of saying what Steve Jobs said in his famous Commencement speech. When you wake up every day, look at yourself in the mirror and ask, if this was my last day on earth, am I doing what I would want to be doing?


3. Let's Dance - Sara Evans. This song, Sue, quite simply puts me in the time when my second daughter was born. No more or less than that, it's just one of those things that bookmarks an important place.


4. Along For The Ride - Matraca Berg. Ditto the above, Sue, but for my first daughter, but also because Matraca Berg is my favourite songwriter, and I'd have to have one of hers with me.


5. Blue Sky - The Allman Brothers Band. This simple melody, a thin song when considered for its verses and chorus alone, is of course lifted into the stratosphere by its guitar duet (can't be a solo, Sue, when there are two guitars, can it?). It's a thing to listen to on long lazy afternoons, to put you in a mellow mood wherever you are. It's also one of those songs, I heard it - or half heard it - a long time ago, and carried around with me a love for the song without ever owning it or hearing it properly, not for many years. And it sort of reminds me of what it means to be an adult, where you can make the decision to just [bleep] well go and buy it, so that you can play it whenever you want to - who cares if you don't like much else that the Allmans do? Just get the [bleep] song, man, because things like this are all too rare.


6. All The Way - Frank Sinatra. I grew up with Frank Sinatra records around the house because my mum loved him. But the truth is that her collection consisted, mainly, of his Reprise output from the 60s and the 70s, when his really glorious Capitol years were behind him. It was only when I was older, and made the decision to get some Sinatra for myself, that I properly heard his Capitol classics. I felt like I was putting something straight: not all that "I did it my way" rubbish, but these timeless classics. Could have picked any one of a number of them, but "All The Way" has a particular resonance with me.


7. Up To Me - Bob Dylan. If the Beatles formed the foundation of my musical tastes, Sue, then the Dylan supplied the mortar. About the time I was 16, and very lonely and generally unhappy, nights spent buried in Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited just about saved my life. Headphones on, lost to the world, I'd listen for hours on end, keeping despair at bay. I moved on from playing those records to death and got into his later stuff, but I have to confess that, strange for a Dylan fan as it is, I never really liked Blood on the Tracks, which is lauded as one of his greatest achievements. I like a couple of the songs, but find the most of it eminently skippable. But then, when the boxed set Biograph appeared, we got to hear this one, which comes from the same sessions, but is all the things that album was cracked up to be. You've got "Tangled Up in Blue," which is fantastic, and "Idiot Wind," which is extraordinary, and then you've got "Up To Me," which is quintessential Dylan - incredibly simple construction, but verse after incredible verse just takes it into another dimension.


8. When You're Alone - Bruce Springsteen. I got into the Beatles first, then Dylan, and - while all my contemporaries were getting all punked up, I got into Springsteen. It would have been about the time of Darkness on the Edge of Town that I first heard him on Radio Caroline, and I went out and bought Born to Run when I was 17, around then. I could pull one of the tracks off one of those records, but in the end I've probably grown to prefer the quieter, less epic approach that he's taken since 1987, when this song appeared. It's a Country song, really, with a very simple repeated message: when you're alone, you're alone. There's nothing epic or artistic about being alone; it's just a very shitty time. So I'd have this along to remind me that I should get off the island as soon as possible.

Luxury: An acoustic guitar, Sue, is a no-brainer for me. If you could possibly include a solar powered tuner, I'd be grateful.
Book: Declare by Tim Powers. What's a Desert Island book? I'm always keener to read new things than I am to re-read something, but I think Tim Powers' books can stand re-reading more than most. Declare is definitely my favourite, and a neat reminder that you can get better as you get older.