Music to live my life by...
My wife and I are big fans of Nick Hornby. One of our favourite books of his is High Fidelity. One of the aspects of this book we enjoy is the lead characters and their incessant list-making, particular by the main character Rob. So, in conversation the other night, we decided we would spend the next couple of months trying to come up with our Desert Island Twenty. This is a list of songs that mean so much to us that we would forsake all other music to only listen to these if stuck on a desert island. The idea is interesting in that everyone has their own favourite pieces, for whatever reasons. I'm interested to see which songs my wife and I both pick. I'm taking a gamble now and am going to say I believe we might have one or two in common, if that. This is not because my wife and I have vastly different tastes, but due to the fact that we both have such a wide variety of taste when it comes to music. My wife is a big fan of Black Box Recorder but can't stand Radiohead, a favourite of mine. We both love bands like BranVan 3000, The Clash and Turin Brakes. I am a big Beastie Boys fan but get the impression my wife could take it or leave it.
I've started my list, which I'm sure is going to grow into a monster. I am prepared to list about 100 songs then cut them back to the top 20. With this, I've already suffered a number of conundrums. For instance: which song off London Calling do I choose? This album alone is so good and has so many great songs, how can I choose just one? So far, my list is as follows (in no particular order):
1. Train In Vain - The Clash
2. Future Boy - Turin Brakes
3. This Day - The Sleepy Jackson
4. Across The Universe - The Beatles
5. Hide Your Love Away - The Beatles
6. Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley
7. Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
8. Sure Shot - Beastie Boys
9. Feel Good Hit Of The Summer - Queens Of The Stone Age
10. Block Rockin' Beats - Chemical Brothers
11. Life's What You Make It - Talk Talk
12. Love Cliche - BranVan 3000
13. Black Betty - Ram Jam
14. Let's Go - The Cars
15. Tame - The Pixies
16. Lithium - Nirvana
17. Purple Sneakers - You Am I
18. Let There Be Rock - AC/DC
19. Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen
20. Starman - David Bowie
21. Young Americans - David Bowie
22. Get It On - T-Rex
23. Around the Fur - The Deftones
So, there you have it. The start of the list. As you can see, it jumps around a fair bit mainly as I think of the songs or hear something that reminds me of something. Please note: I would have put down about ten Bowie, Pixies and Clash songs and about 20 Beatles songs if I were able. Everytime I think about it, I think of another song or two or three that I'd like to add. But I think it is better to have too many than not enough. I will keep you all posted on this exercise.