MUSIC PLAYLIST

8 Songs For A Desert Island

The tracks that would get me through isolation on a remote island without Spotify access

I think this is a challenge of some kind but I’m not entirely sure.

I saw this great article by Dan Reich in response to the (maybe) challenge. He describes the eight great tracks he’d take with him if he were to be stranded on a desert island. He cheated a little by saying he’d take his guitar too so I’ll do the same. My guitar that is, not Dan’s.

Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio show where celebrities come into the studio to talk about the eight songs they would take with them to the desert island.

Even Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney have appeared on the show — here’s The Springsteen Desert Island List and The Macca Desert Island Recording on the BBC website.

The only self-imposed rule I’ll make is to have each artist appear only once. This means I’ve lumped The Beatles and solo Beatles together as one artist.

I’m going to pack the following tracks along with my guitar and sunglasses and head off to the sun and sea. And seagulls.

1. Tumbling Dice — The Rolling Stones

The Stones have made any number of incredible tracks over the years. Tumbling Dice may not be the most obvious example but it’s my first selection. Why it is will become apparent as you go through the entire list and spot my tastes.

Tumbling Dice appears to be a fairly obvious blues/boogie rock song at first listen with its standard rock ‘n roll chord structure of 1, 4 and 5. But it has something special going on.

The nonchalant laid-back groove is not quite Chuck Berry and not quite blues; it’s the Stones at their insouciant best.

Keith Richard’s open-tuned descending guitar hook links so beautifully with the gospel-style chorus lines that even I might dance to this one. I said might.

This is how you play rock ‘n roll.

2. Brilliant Disguise — Bruce Springsteen

Thunder Road and Promised Land are probably my favourite Bruce songs but I’ve just popped a harmonica and one of those Dylan type shoulder holders into my guitar case so I’ll cover those two myself (badly).

I toyed with choosing Point Blank too but if I’m feeling a bit miserable one evening during a tropical rainstorm and no live football it might not help to hear about being “shot in the back.”

Someone might now point out that Brilliant Disguise from Tunnel of Love isn’t too difficult to play either which is true. The thing is, it has that cool drum beat and haunting synthesiser sound that are pretty fundamental to the song. I can’t play the drums anyway but if I could, they wouldn’t fit in my suitcase so I need to pack this track instead. Next to the factor 50.

I love that this song and the entire Tunnel of Love album were such a complete departure for this studio follow-up to mega-hit, Born In The USA.

This is an artist at the top of his game for every game.

3. Now My Heart Is Full — Morrissey

Yes, I know. I chose a Springsteen song without all the E-Streeters on it and now a Morrissey song that is not The Smiths. It’s just how it worked out; life’s full of contradictions.

Morrissey’s lyrics on this one are as ambiguous as they often are; you take what you want from them.

Boz Boorer, his lead guitarist, wrote the music making the song distinct from anything by The Smiths as Mozza got into his stride as a solo artist. I love the intro build-up into its beautiful melody and Morrisey’s use of fictional characters from Brighton Rock. And who the hell is Bunnie?

Enigmatic as always.

4. Heroic Polonaise— Chopin

You’ll know this one.

I love classical music, especially when it’s piano-based. And especially when it's on solo piano and sounds like a jolly old London pub song.

That said, I doubt many London pub pianists could play Polonaise due to its complexity and speed. Only highly proficient piano virtuosos are able to play it which leaves me out. Let It Be and Strawberry Fair are my limit.

It’s an astonishing piece of music that I’ve seen played live on two occasions. Once at a Chopin concert by an Italian piano virtuoso whose name slips my mind and once by a pub pianist. It’s true.

5. Going Underground — The Jam

Paul Weller has been around for 50 years in three different incarnations, the Jam, The Style Council and solo.

His early songs, like Going Underground, had angry political anti-establishment lyrics:

You choose your leaders and place your trust As their lies wash you down and their promises rust You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns And the public wants what the public gets

These days, Paul Weller is considered a British national treasure and he’s not so angry just miserable. But he can still rock and that’s exactly what I’ll need on the island. Rock.

6. Into My Arms — Nick Cave

Into My Arms is a love song with a hymn-like feel full of religious imagery. However, Cave sings that he “doesn't believe in an interventionist God,” or “in the existence of angels.”

He accepts that the object of his song does and he speculates that if he were to believe in God and angels, he’d ask them to, “Watch over you.”

A haunting ballad accompanied only by Cave himself on the piano. I’ll need one ‘slowey’ for when I’m feeling mellow watching the sunset over the single palm tree while sitting on a sand dune drinking a cool beer.

There will be beer? Won’t there?

7. Johnny B Goode — Chuck Berry

I got into Chuck Berry through The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I was 1 year old when this track came out so I didn’t hear it until a little later on.

A standard 1, 4, 5 rock chord progression but wow, what energy and guitar playing. Berry seems to break all the rules by flipping between scales on his guitar breaks. Rules are for wimps and ordinary guitar players.

Berry set the template for rock music and rock guitar specifically for decades to come. I think this is his greatest moment, a defining episode in rock history equivalent to Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel and The Beatles’ Please Please Me five years later.

And if you don’t believe that, here he is with The E Street Band and then with John Lennon. Even Bruce and Lennon are impressed and if you can impress those two, no one else counts.

Only Keith Richards comes anywhere close to that Chuck Berry rock guitar groove.

I also used this as a weak excuse to squeeze Bruce and a Beatle in more than once. I wasn’t breaking my own rules, merely bending them.

8 I Feel Fine — The Beatles

Maybe not The Beatles’ track most people would take to their desert island but it was between this one and the fast version of Revolution. You see, I love rock and it’s my island. I hope there are massive speakers there. No neighbours to worry about and it would keep the damn seagulls away.

An iconic feedback intro, the instantly recognisable riff and a good ol’ 1, 4, 5 rock ‘n roll verse structure. Being The Beatles, they do something different and break out into a minor third for the bridge just as you were expecting a standard Chuck Berry sound-a-like.

It’s joyous and happy. Not The Beatles at their most sophisticated but if I’m going to be alone with just the ocean, sand and a few coconuts, I might as well be happy.

Desert Island Discs

Let me know what 8 tracks you’d take to your desert island in the comments or in your own article.

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