Desert Island Discs

In spite of the recent receipt of some scandalous information, we've still been sufficiently intrigued by Desert Island Discs' listener survey to establish the nation's Desert Island Discs to have a go ourselves (not least because I've touched on this before).

Given that my list of musical favourites fluctuates every time I think about it, my approach was to brainstorm a long list, then thin to a shorter one. Having my iPod to hand, I was able to quickly run through the list of tracks I've listened to most times ...

• Electrolite OR Near Wild Heaven, R.E.M.
• Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Bob Crosby and the Bobcats
• Pornographer’s Dream OR It Makes Me Wonder OR When Heroes Go Down, Suzanne Vega
• Road To Nowhere OR (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads
• Wish You Were Here OR Great Gig In The Sky, Pink Floyd
• Up On The Roof, The Drifters
• Kanada’s Death, Pt. 2, John Murphy
• Hey Ya!, OutKast
• Avril 14th, Aphex Twin
• The Other Side, Michael Nyman
• Candy Everybody Wants, 10000 Maniacs
• God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters, Moby
• Hoppipolla, Sigur Ros
• Sunday Morning, Velvet Underground
• Sinnerman, Nina Simone
• Learning To Fly, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, Billy Bragg
• Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
• Waking Up, Elastica
• Heaven Sent, INXS
• Parklife OR Coffee And TV OR Trimm Trabb, Blur
• Warriors Of The Wasteland, FGTH
• Is It Like Today?, World Party
• Modern Love, David Bowie
• You Got The Love, Candi Staton
• Spring (Allegro), Antonio Vivaldi [Gil Shaham & Orpheus]
• Moonlight Sonata, Ludwig van Beethoven

Thinning down was easy at first, but got progressively more difficult as I needed three, then two, then one final track. Worse, I found myself almost subconsciously juggling priority to ensure a balance of old and new, trendy and obscure, throwaway and worthy. So in the end, I more or less brainstormed the brainstormed list, and tried to think as little as possible about each track. Doubtless the list will change by, say, tomorrow, but it's a bit more honest that what my subconscious was secretly fashioning ...

1. Electrolite, REM
2. When Heroes Go Down, Suzanne Vega
3. Road To Nowhere, Talking Heads
4. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
5. Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
6. Spring (Allegro), Antonio Vivaldi [Gil Shaham & Orpheus]
7. Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, Billy Bragg
8. God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters, Moby

Meanwhile, I put C on the spot, and whittled a list out of her in just a few short minutes. The first four came easy, and while the latter ones required a bit more thought, she still got there much faster than I did. And, I suspect, much more honestly (it's certainly more interesting). One thing that we did think about was how much the resulting list should reflect musical preference, and how much the choices should reflect memories. I plumped for about 50:50, and used this to leverage C's final tracks out of her ...

1. My Girl, The Temptations
2. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
3. Your Song, Billy Paul
4. Midnight Train To Georgia, Gladys Knight and the Pips
5. Canon in D, Johann Pachebel
6. See My Baby Jive, Wizzard
7. Stand Down Margaret, The Beat
8. Don't Stop Me Know, Queen

Anyway, the survey closes tomorrow, and a special programme on the nation's choices is planned for the 11th June. So we'll soon know what the Venn diagram linking the lists above to that general public's looks like. I'm not expecting much overlap. Nessun Dorma is bound to be on it, Bohemian Rhapsody might well make it, and I live in mortal fear of Imagine making a highly-rated appearance. The horror.

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P.S. Deditos - looking forwards to reading the well-crafted DID list that you alluded to previously ...