If I Could Take Only 8 Songs With Me to a Desert Island…
Just sit right back and you’ll hear my tale
There have been a lot of fun writing prompts/writing challenges on Medium recently for music lovers like myself.
One that all the cool kids seem to be doing right now is this ‘If I Could Take Only 8 Songs to a Desert Island’ challenge. Because I hope to someday be a cool kid myself, I’m jumping on the bandwagon.
If I was stranded alone on an island, I’d want these great songs with me:
Press — Paul McCartney
If you were to ask 100 Paul McCartney fans what their favorite songs by Paul are, I doubt that many of them would include “Press” on their list. I’d also be surprised if many music lovers under 50 years old even know the song. “Press” was only moderately successful when it was released as a single in 1986, so it’s not a song that gets played regularly (or at all) now on the radio or elsewhere.
What made me initially fall in love with “Press” was the music video for the song. It was shot entirely in the London Underground and features Paul McCartney lip-synching the song while he interacts with “regular people” in the station and on a Tube train. Paul seems to be having a fantastic time throughout the entire video. So do the people who are around him! I love watching a lot of their faces as they watch Paul. You can tell they adore him and love being around him.
And that’s why I’ve always loved the video — it’s a lot of fun to watch!
I may not have a way to actually view the music video when I’m stranded alone on the island, but just hearing the song will remind me of it and make me smile again.
Smoke From a Distant Fire — The Sanford-Townsend Band
To me, this is the perfect “pop” song. It’s got a little bit of several great things going on in it: a great beat, great lyrics with a little bit of “attitude” to them (such as “don’t let the screen door hit you…on your way out!”), and exceptional lead vocals from singer Johnny Townsend.
Another thing I love about it is that there are multiple very short solos that allow the band members to show off their impressive musical skills: the drums and saxophone towards the beginning, the lead and bass guitars towards the middle of the song, etc. There are also fantastic background vocals throughout the song.
Oh, yeah, folks! I love it!
But you probably picked up on that by now, right?
Jump — Van Halen
Quite simply, this is my favorite song.
Ever.
By anyone.
It’s made me feel good every single time I’ve heard it since it was released in 1984.
I don’t see that ever changing.
I was initially going to share just the music video for McCartney’s song in this article and use just Spotify clips for the remainder of the songs — but there is no way I can’t share this one too…
The Girl I Knew Somewhere — The Monkees
One of my favorite songs by my favorite group ever.
A LITTLE TRIVIA HERE: It’s well-known that The Monkees were not allowed by the people who ran their recordings to have very much musical input on their earliest songs and albums. In fact, most of the music on their first two albums was played by outside musicians.
Things changed after their second album. The Monkees demanded to be allowed to have creative control of their music — and they were finally allowed to do so.
The very first song they recorded with all four of their members playing instruments was “The Girl I Knew Somewhere.” The only other person playing on it is their producer Chip Douglas, who played bass on it.
It’s a pretty amazing “first” song!
Twist of Fate — Oliva Newton-John
This song came from the 1983 movie Two of a Kind, which starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The movie was okay — but it certainly wasn’t fantastic. It didn’t perform well in movie theaters, but its soundtrack was very popular — primarily because of “Twist of Fate.” The song was a huge hit and made it up to #5 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
I like quite a few songs by Olivia Newton-John, but this one has always been my favorite by her. She sounds great on it and I love the music in it — especially the nice steady beat it has.
Because of that great beat, the song is fun to listen to while exercising. I especially love hearing “Twist of Fate” while I’m running or riding my Peloton bike. I doubt there will be a Peloton bike available for me to ride on my island, but hopefully I can still run there. If so, it will be nice to have this song with me.
And my lying continues…
A LITTLE TRIVIA: This song was co-written by Peter Beckett. If you don’t know his name, there’s a good chance you’ve heard his voice. He’s the lead singer of the band Player, who had a huge hit in the 1970s with the song “Baby Come Back.”
The Boys Are Back In Town — Thin Lizzy
This is another song that always makes me happy when I hear it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what my life might be like on the island. Even though I’m going to be the only person there, I won’t be surprised if random animals show up there.
If so, I’m going to give names to all of them that I encounter. I don’t care whether they’re birds, monkeys, sharks, unicorns, squirrels, water buffalo, etc. — they’re all getting names.
Whenever the male animals (my boys!) show up, I’m going to put on “The Boys Are Back In Town” to celebrate their arrival.
It will be fun for me and fun for them. We’ll sing together! We’ll dance together!
Good times for us all!
Girl Just Want To Have Fun — Cyndi Lauper
This song was not on my original list of songs to take with me to the island. However, I started to feel bad about the boy animals on the island having their own special song and the girl animals not having one — so I included “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” for them.
Plus, I won’t lie to you — I like to have fun too. I’ll sing along with the girl animals on the island! I’ll dance with them too!
Good times for us all!
Echoes — Pink Floyd
This song is very laid-back and chill-sounding in many parts, so I think it will be very good to listen during nights on the island — especially after longs days of singing and dancing with the animals.
But seriously….
This is possibly my favorite song by Pink Floyd. I love the brief vocals in it, in which David Gilmour’s and Richard Wright’s voices sound absolutely magical together. And as for the music in the song…well…just….wow. The song may be very mellow in parts, but it also rocks hard in other parts.
An added bonus to choosing this song is that it’s over 23 minutes long. It’s actually the longest of all of Pink Floyd’s songs, so it’s a good choice for the island.
After all, if I’m allowed only 8 songs while I’m there, I should have at least one song with me that’s really, really long.
Here’s one of my favorite live versions of “Echoes.” It comes from a solo tour that Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour did in 2006. With him on the tour was Pink Floyd’s keyboardist/vocalist Richard Wright. To me, they sound as great here as they did on the original recording from 1971.
And here’s my complete playlist on Spotify:
Thank you to Alex Markham, Paul Combs, Kevin Alexander, Dan Reich, Terry Barr, Scott-Ryan Abt and all the others who did this challenge before I did and inspired me to do it too.
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