Entertainment For Lively Minds
Which eight non-rock records would you take to your desert island?
When I'm invited on "Desert Island Discs" I won't be picking any rock records. They always sound so false in that context to me, as if they've been chosen to prove how edgy you are. "Desert Island Discs" shouldn't be like that. It should be all about odd bits of classical music, hymns played by brass bands, legendary comedy records from the 60s, recordings of birdsong from the BBC Archive and things that have special sentimental significance which you explain before you play it. So here's my eight non-pop gramophone records I shall be taking to the island.
1. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin: "The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game In New York."
2. The crowd at Cardiff Arms Park singing "Land Of My Fathers".
3. Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven doing "St James Infirmary".
4. Conan O'Brien's speech to the Harvard Class of 2000.
5. Michael Flanders & Donald Swann: "The Slow Train".
6. Boccherini String Quartets.
7. Gilbert & Sullivan's "Behold The Lord High Executioner"
8. Blind Alfred Reed: "Always Lift Him Up".
Over to you.
- More from David Hepworth.
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Hope to hear that edition
:Reminded me of this
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-lister-the-dark-...
*cough*
Do you think Stoppard was aware of Major Lance? Or is that part of the predicament perhaps...
Um
I'm sure it would be, but maybe he just had his head down that year ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Stoppard
(edit: had to go and look up the dialogue in the play as it's not online-I saw it in '82 and Roger Rees/Felicity Kendall made a big impression as Henry and Annie. Scene is quite a bit longer than this excerpt, and functions well as a light counterpoint to the themes of love and betrayal, and indeed honesty:
DH don't agree that pop music out of place
Peely got to play "eat y'self fitter" by The Fall, I often think people choose classical music for the same reason to show off their cultural know how. But going with your premise here's my picks today.
1. The Licorice Fields At Pontefract By Sir John Betjeman
2. The main theme from the Magnificent Seven By Elmer Bernstein
3. Quiet City by Aaron Copland
4. Tw*t by John Cooper Clarke
5. An excert from the BBC radio version of Lord of Rings (the Battle of Helms Deep)
6. Goldberg Variations by JS Bach (1)
7. The opening speech of "Patton" by George C Scott
8. Bach goes to town by Benny Goodman
Here's mine.
1. Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 5
2. Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night
3. Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
4. Bill Evans - Peace Piece
5. J.S. Bach - Cantata BWV 29
6. Allegri - Miserere
7. Shostakovich - Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad'
8. Giovani Gabrieli - One of the Canzons for brass, can't remember the precise title.
.
.
I was asked to choose the music for my aunt's funeral...
and I selected both Dark Was The Night - Cold Was The Ground and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. She was a big influence on me musically and had a really good collection of jazz, blues and 'world music' (eurgh, hate that term - someone think of a better one).
Interesting...
1. Under Milk Wood - the Richard Burton version
2. Another Spring Will Rise - Burt Bacharach
3. The final Rutger Hauer speech from Blade Runner
4. The Imperial March (From The Empire Strikes Back) - John Williams
5. The theme from The Avengers - Laurie Johnson
6. The drum break from Apache - The Incredible Bongo Band
7. This Is What She's Like - Dexys Midnight Runners (well, they were one of the most anti-rock of the 80s anti-rock people. Additionally it is practically a spoken word track...)
8. Walk Away Renee(version) - Billy Bragg
Theme from The Avengers?
Good call, sir! I trust it'll be the full version with the snazzy brass-driven bit in the middle with the tumbling strings? Pure Class!
I have this
as my ringtone - never fails to give me a frisson of feeling momentarily cool :-)
Figment of speech
And a genius call on the Billy Bragg. Wordplay par excellence, all from the mouth of a young naive...
"And then one day it happened. She cut her hair and I stopped loving her."
Another lot
1. Shostakovich Symphony No.4 (Rattle/CBSO)
2. Beethoven Symphony No.9 (Karajan)
3. What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
4. Headhunters - Herbie Hancock
5. The Complete Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong duets
6. Bach's complete Preludes & Fugues for piano (both books)
7. Any compilation of music by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra
8. Kind Of Blue - Miles Davis
I could do you about twenty folk records here...
... but I'll only put in a couple.
1) The Raggle Taggle Gypsies - Planxty (greatest folk band ever, please look them up, I could have done a dozen tunes here just by them)
2) Blue Jam - Chris Morris
3) Rant In E- Minor - Bill Hicks (or indeed any of them)
4) Pithecanthropus Erectus - Charles Mingus
5) 7th Symphony - Beethoven (the first part of this is perhaps the happiest tune I own. Even more joyful than the Ode to Joy in the 9th)
6) Theme De Yo Yo - The Art Ensemble Of Chicago
7) The Two Heided Man / The Two Heided Man Strikes Again - Matt McGinn (two is cheating I know, but they complement each other too well. Billy Connolly started his career as McGinn's banjo player)
8) Wandrin' Star - Lee Marvin
Blimey
Chris Morris, Mingus, Beethoven, Hicks. You are a man of true taste.
Long may you sail.
My take
The Lark Ascending - Vaughan Williams
Lachrimae Pavan - John Dowland
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Shostakovich Symphony No.5
Round The Horne
Johnners Cricketing Gaffes, Giggles and Cakes
West Side Story - Bernstein
Stomping at The Savoy - Benny Goodman
I've thought long and hard before
posting this, but fug it, here goes...
What a load of pretentious wank. Who are you lot kidding? Really?
No 'Guest' log-on to hide behind. Just me and my honest thoughts.
Really?
I'm having a pretentious wank as my luxury.
A lubricated copy of War and Peace stained beyond coherence.
"What a lot of pretentious wank"?
On what grounds?
Liking records that aren't rock records?
Don't understand.
word faill
me Mr Spector
And spelling,
apparently :-)
Pretentious?
Moi?
*lights gitane, reads some more of L'Etranger*
LOL
Smiley face. Thank you
Liking records that aren’t rock records?
The weakness of a lot of rock music that’s made these days - and Oasis are a prime example - is that it’s made by people who’ve never even listened to anything except rock music.
The 'pretentious wank' was
The 'pretentious wank' was the 'when' i'm invited rather than the 'if' Mr Hepworth.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be invited
but I venture to suggest DH was being humorous...
Oh dear
That's humour, Mr Woodface. However, when I'm Prime Minister I shall pass a law to make sure that such statements are marked with a smiley to avoid such confusion :-)
I reckon if he'd allow Private Passions as well as DID
he might be in with a chance:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnv3
Mmm it could be, but it
Mmm it could be, but it could also be a moment of hubris. That's the thing with posts, perhaps I was being homourous also?
including Jazz and folk...
1 - 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' by Chet Baker
2 - 'Gabriel's Oboe' by Ennio Morricone
3 - 'Moon River' the movie version by Audrey Hepburn
4 - 'The Parting Glass' by The Clancy Bros and Tommy Makem (could equally be Planxty as above)
5 - The 4th Movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (Choral)
6 - 'Hymn Before Action' from Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace
7 - 'O Fortuna' from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana
8 - 'Let The Cold Wind Blow' by Kate Rusby
So..
Jazz, folk, classical, musicals, soundtracks and comedy are "pretentious wank".
Thanks for the update.
Surely it depends what you listen to
as to what's pretentious?
If one didn't listen to classical music, then surely it'd be far more pretentious to pick classical music than whatever it was one actually listened to (and vice versa)?
I bet there are plenty of people who pick classical tracks when in reality they like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm and Top Gear's Drive Time Classics Vol 40.
Agreed
I don't listen to classical/jazz a lot, and for me to post a list of pieces of music that I don't listen to would be indeed pretentious, hence me not posting a list of tracks.
Not Picking Rock Records because
"They always sound so false in that context to me, as if they've been chosen to prove how edgy you are. " Is a pretty good definition of pretentious. There is absolutely nothing wrong with picking whatever moves you, and if that excludes rock then so be it. However, I would suggest that it's a strange statement from someone who has spent a large amount of their adult life in the production of pop and rock magazines. If any other member of this fine community had posted this I believe they would have had scorn poured down upon them from a great height. The idea of 8 non rock recordings to take to a desert island would have made a fine topic. It's the justification I have a problem with.
I'd go along with that.
.
yup
- agreed. If Mr H took the opposite approach I wonder what 8 rock rekkids he would choose?
More pretentious wank.....
1. Morricone - "Deborah's theme from Once Upon A Time in America". So so wonderfully sentimentally nostalgically bitterly sad.
2. Glenn Miller - "Moonlight Serenade". Reminds me of me Dad. Sonic syrup.
3. Erik Satie - "Trois Gymnopedies"
4. Brian Johnson & Joathan Agnew - "Stop It Aggers" Cheers me up whenever I hear it.
5. Cast From Oliver - "Who will buy?" Best song ever in a musical
6. The Millenium Stadium singing - "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" as Wales win another Grand Slam.
7. Winston Churchill - "Their Finest Hour"
8. Moon River
My (sonic) luxury would be to take Test Match Special with me - both to be able to hear new matches but also full access to the TMS vaults so that I could listen to the ball by ball play against WIndies in 75 or the Aussies in 2005 etc. If the rescue boat arrived I'd send it away.
like as the waves
make toward the pebbled shore...
1. Nehru's speech on eve of Indian Independence
2. Sacred Songs of Priests - Various
3. Maestro of the Indian Flue - Hariprasad Chaurasia
4. Women of Ireland - The Chieftains
5. Time Was - read by its author John Wain (Anthology of 20th C Poetry)
6. Cheese & Crackers (Best of) - Chris Rock
7. Mahler Symphony No.9 - Kurt Masur
8. Lush Life - John Coltrane/Johnny Hartman
Oh!
The Coltrane/Hartman album - an astonishing listen, what a great shout...
Indeed
I've got it playing at the mo on Spotify thanks to your memory prod. I haven't listened to it for a long time on account of not having a working - cough - cassette player at the moment. So much of my jazz is on that medium from a time when a friend on my father allowed me to raid his record collection over the course of a few holidays when I was at college. It must be 7 or 8 years since I last played it. May have to go up to the loft and have a bit of a rummage of some boxes.
My One and Only Love
I might have chosen that one too - but Lush Life is just so perfect.
And Billy Strayhorn - what a name, what a story, what a dude.
Cutler/Hancock/McGoohan
Ivor Cutler doesn't count as rock does he?
Something from 'Ludo' then, and I'd have the Hancock episode 'Fred's Pie Stall' and the theme to 'The Prisoner'.
Oh, and the 'Botham tried to get his leg over' commentary by Brian Johnstone and Aggers.
But, if I'm honest, all eight of mine would be pre-1960 rock 'n' roll records.
Um, um, and indeed um
Partly trying to pick something that doesn't overlap above (as Shostakovich 5, Gabriel's Oboe, and quite a few others would be great for me, and I really can't choose the jazz off the top of my head), but all of these would be contenders:
1. Finzi-Dies Natalis, Final Movement, Virgin Classics recording.
2. "I vow to thee, my country"-(as slow as possible, schooldays)
3. Ravel Piano Concerto, Slow Mvt-Argerich version on DG from late 60s-I love it and so does my dad.
4. Bach Cantata-140 "Wachet Auf"-remind me of my late mum-small group version e.g. Joshua Rifkin.
5. Stravinsky-Pulcinella-Academy of St Martin's in the Fields, Marriner (could just as easily be Petrushka or Apollon).
6. The Riviera Affair-Neil Richardson
7. Pat Metheny-New Chautauqua
8. Woody Allen-The Moose
(edit: In the light of some of the above comments, I feel I need to point the line about "the jazz off the top of my head" is nothing to do with a scene from the film "There's Something About Mary" ;-))
I like this game
I have played it for many years.
Here's my current selection (on Spotify), should Radio 4 make the call:
Coconuts for tea - again
1. Wonderland By Night/Bert Kaempfert
2. Love Is Blue/Paul Mauriat
3. The Free Life/Alan Parker
4. Willow's Song/Wicker Man Soundtrack
5. Scarborough Fair/Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66
6. Music Box Dancer/Frank Mills
7. All ITV station idents from 1955-95
8. Red Wine & Promises/Lal & Mike Waterson
Thanks for Love is Blue
just grabbed the Beck version, perversely, from iTunes ... will air before the Podcast on bus home ...
Music Box dancer!!!
I thought I was the only person who loved this tune. I salute you, sir!
Darn
I missed "Abide With Me" from my list. One of the all time great songs.
Also Calon Lan.
Pick Mahler 9
and you (almost) get Abide w/ me thrown in free ... last mvt ...
seriously though I reckon the Day thou Gavest, Abide with Me and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind could all do for me, as well as O Come O Come Emmanuel. In fact a good game would be 8 songs of one's childhood, as I trust my young self's aesthetic judgements far more than my current one.
When I typed this it never occurred to me that
the similarity to Abide with me was an intentional quoting--Stephen Johnson's excellent programme
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s9g5j
suggests it was ---you live and learn eh ?
8 ball
The Chieftains in China
Marchin and Swingin by Wilbur de Paris
The Adaggio of Spartacus and Phrygia
Gershwin´s Rhapsody in Blue
Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing Let´s Call the Whole Thing Off
Tony Bennett singing Irving Berlin
Louis Prima from the Jungle Book
and
Pomp and Circumstance
Today, my eight would be...
1. Jan Garbarek & the Hilliard Ensemble: 'Agnus Dei'
2. Keith Jarrett Standards Trio: 'Autumn Leaves / Up For It'
3. John Surman & Trans4mation: 'At Dusk'
4. Trembling Bells: 'I Listed All the Velvet Lessons' (I count this as folk, hope that's all right)
5. Handel's 'Coronation Anthems', as performed in a slightly more low-key way than usual by The Sixteen. (And you get the Queen of Sheba on the same CD.)
6. Theme from 'Return of the Saint' (with the genius opening titles playing in my head)
7. Lee Morgan: 'Yes I Can, No You Can't'
8. Anything by Claire Martin, if I'm honest. I start listening to her, get completely distracted, all the song titles escape me and there's no way I could name one...
Eight
1. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (No 6) - all 5 movements.
2. Ave Maria - Concertino version
3. The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music (film soundtrack)
4. The Troggs tapes - "you've done it wrong" etc
5. One of Neil Kinnock's speeches - either "why was I the first to go to University...grandfather a poet...etc" or "the grotesque chaos of a Labour Council, a Laaaa-bour Council...etc" but preferably both
6 & 7. Bread of Heaven and the Welsh national anthem sung by a Male Voice Choir
8. Soundtrack of dialogue from Airplane.
never understand
I just don't get it Mr. H, it sounds like inverted snobbery. Why would you exclude such a wealth of wonderment and the effect music has?
It *is* inverted snobbery
The whole notion of wanting to law down the law on Desert Island Discs is the very essence of snobbery, inverted and otherwise.
This thread was designed to elicit a lot of interesting suggestions from the vast endless prairie of music beyond the increasingly airless category of rock.
Which it has done.
I await your appearance on DID
to see if you hold good.
not that there's any danger I should ever appear but:
I would take some Johnny Clarke, Just a Min. and ISIHAC, Nyman would, of course be in there along with some Clement Freud - if we're going off the 'rock' track but, it'd be hell sans some KC/Clash/Sisters
Also, lighten up
And it's also just a wee bit craic on a forum, so to paraphrase Hicks (by taking the gratuitous drugs reference out): stop taking everything so seriously.
maybe 'cos DH doesn't want to end up like this ;-)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20060528.shtml
which may in fact have been quite genuine-but no one will ever believe it ...
or 'cos he was once a record plugger ...
or 'cos it makes a change from the Randomiser ...
(PS judging by today's haul I think Cameron should have outsourced the job to the Massive ...)
I can't see a problem
with any of those choices. Maybe he actually picked the songs that mean the most to him.
A crazy notion, I know!
I have a beer drinker, a lager drinker, and a cider drinker
in me-as the ad used to say.
Indeed-I think Cameron probably did do what you say.
But speaking purely personally I have several groups of music that "mean most" to me, from several eras, and I could make a case for 8 non-rock as easily as 8 rock, and I'd find it hard to tell what the most "truthful" set was. Music that spoke to me as a child seems at least as genuine as my latest enthusiasm.
I don't think Word has ever been able to fully target the breadth of taste that it's tagline refers to, and that Mark Ellen referred to in the first Q editorial iirc, but I'm, again purely personally, interested that DH still seems interested in trying.
Cameron picked the tracks
which mean the most to him.
I believe that's the point of the program.
with some spin doctoring
along the way there's no way any ambitious politian would not pour carefully over the list for any unfortunate lyrics that might come to bite him in the future. New Labour, liberals would do this just as much. But I'm sure DC does like these tracks but they are not off the top of his head.
Ok,
so even if these are 8 from 20 that were approved by his advisors I still don't get the criticism in relation to this blog. The suggestion was made that Hepworth's rational would save him from making choices like those of Cameron. My point is, there is nothing wrong with Cameron's choices and further more they seem a great deal more honest than the esteemed director's.
Apologies for blurring the arguments
when DH made a perfectly lucid explanation of his own-I should have waited longer and perhaps scrapped my own comment.
However, I can quite see how for example, the Slow Train and St James Infirmary, would speak as well (not better, not worse) for him as, say, Crowded House or Springsteen.
I don't think this is more or less honest than Cameron's liking for REM, just allowing a different facet of oneself to speak.
Eton Rifles
Didn't he also love the Clash and The Jam? Or had those escaped him?
My 8 today
1. William Walton - Crown Imperial
2. Kilar - Exodus
3. The Scottmen Plus - Mr Big Cha Cha
4. James Last - A Man & A Woman (from "Games That Lovers Play)
5. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant & Karl Pilkington - Any of the XFM shows.
6. Dudley Moore Trio - Millionaire
7. Colin Tully - Theme From "Gregory's Girl"
8. Guy Marks - Loving You Has Made Me Bananas
ricky gervais really
those podcast are what put me off him I can't bear Karl Pilkington it's just not funny plus all RG does is screech all the time, can't imagine being on desert island with them. Would swap for the office or maybe extras, but each to their own.
Not the Podcasts
Chris, though I do like them. It was the XFM shows (got them on eBay a few years ago, although there are some on iTunes as audiobooks now) that for me were probably the funniest thing I've ever heard. I think many of them were recorded around the time "The Office" was just starting to get noticed (i.e. before megastardom), which may explain the freshness of them.
Oh!
the Gervais podcasts are a thing of wonder!
I could survive the desert Island with them alone.
*edit
& the XFM shows!
Surely a desert island disc
is one that you can listen to time and again without experiencing diminishing returns? I would hate to get washed up on that shoreline with eight records that I love but would soon detest, or with eight that I chose because it seemed 'correct' but which I would very soon detest.
I'm pretty certain that I've yet to find eight that will stand the test of (a very long) time.
My selections (I hope they all qualify)...
Arvo Pärt - Alina
Ivor Cutler - I Believe in Bugs
Antonio Carlos Jobim - Themes from the film 'Cronica da Casa Assassinada'
Johnny Hodges - A Flower is a Lovesome Thing
Mulatu Astaqé - Yèkèrmo Sèw
Jacqueline du Pré - Elgar Cello Concerto
Miles Davis - Blues for Pablo
The Ink Spots - I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire
Island life
Possibly:-
1)There's a place for you - from West Side Story
2)Jupiter - from Holsts Planet suite
3)Peter Sellers - Goodness gracious me
4)We are the Ovalteenies - tv ad from 60's/70's
5)Stranger on the shore -Acker Bilk
6)You never done it like that - Captain and Tennille
7)Ducks on a pond - Incredible String Band (The old man took the piss when i played it as a teenager)
8)Everybody wants to be a cat - from the Aristocats
Oh...
Acker Bilk - can I change one of mine for "Aria"?
Wilfully avoiding the eight tracks I would *really* pick...
...and following the premise set by DH, I would (today) go for:
Ave Maria - not mithered who by, reminds me of my Mum.
Nessun dorma done by Pavarotti, as much for its footy connotations as anything else
Theme from Z-Cars by Johnny Keating (continuing the footy theme)
The Word Podcast with the Elton John HORA (the one with Scrotum, the 'wrinkled retainer')
Miles' Sketches of Spain
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata
Prologue to West Side Story
Harry Dean Stanton's 'I Knew These People' speech from Paris, Texas
Nuts!
Rip The Calico - Bothy Band
Martin Wynn's/The Longford Tinker - Bothy Band
De Profundis (Psalm 129) - Arvo Part
Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus - Vaughan Williams
Nobody Knows the trouble I see (Child of Our Time) - Michael Tippett
Prelude (Agharta) - Miles Davis
Music for 18 musicians - Steve Reich
Cornfield (Prospero's Books) - Michael Nyman
After Eight
1) Someday My Prince Will Come- Miles Davis
2) Appalachian Spring- Copland
3) Daydream - Duke Ellington
4) Flamingo - Frank Rosolino Quartet
5) An Ending (Ascent)- Brian Eno
6) Fly Me To The Moon - Tony Bennett
7) Mystery Girl - Roy Orbison
8) Living On An Island -Status Quo
Oh go on then...
1 Spem in Alium-Thomas Tallis
2 Prologue from Boris Godunov-Modest Mussorgsky
3 Quem Pastores Vidistis-Giovanni Gabrieli-from a Venetian Christmas
4 Belleville-Django Reinhardt
5 Requiem-Gabriel Fauré (1st movement)
6 Songe d'une nuit de Sabbat from Symphonie Fantastique-Hector Berlioz
7 Hebridean Overture/Fingal's Cave- Felix Mendelssohn
8 5th Symphony-Jean Sibelius
OK feel free to have a go, but a few of these would be in my DID even if there were no restrictions.
The first eight that spring to mind...
1. Red Army Choir - National Anthem of The Soviet Union
2. Fela Kuti - Zombie
3. Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue
4. Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night
5. Charles Mingus - Solo Dancer
6. Ri Kyong Suk - Arirang
7. Original Broadway Cast From Fiddler On The Roof - Far From the Home I Love
8. Alec Baldwin's 'Always Be Closing' speech from Glengarry Glen Ross
The best scene
from one of the greatest movies of all time.
new
I cant think of 8 so
1 John Shuttleworth-Red Wine and Hobnobs
2 Any Danny Baker Podcast
3The Opera singer dressed as a clown in THe Untouchables[can anyone tell me what this is called,thanks]
4Paul Shane-You Lost that loving feeling[for belly laughs]
5music Sky+ plays when you hit green button.
6 Ahh I give up
could be enrique caruso
or possibly someone in the role of Pagliacci.
Tears of a Clown
re #3: I think this is what you want
--Smokey Robinson
new
Thanks Chris and NickW. This is why this is a brilliant site
Candyman, Chandler and Amhran na bhFiann
Pretentious:
Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream'.
Non pretentious:
My self edited mp3 versions of either the Irish National Anthem sung at Croke Park the day we humped England by about 40 points in rugby union or from the day Armagh won the All Ireland football title in 2002? (tears, both times, I'm afraid)
Five Danny Baker podcasts. (Assorted Talk Radio Joanne (Leicester City (Brian Little-era) revelations and Teletext Alex doing Bohemian Rhapsody in footballers names).
And one Elliott Gould reads Raymond Chandler unabridged. Big Sleep probably.
Rock & Roll - Nein Danke!
Bugs Bunny Theme - Carl Stalling
Popeye The Sailor Man - Granville Williams Orchesyta
Howl - Alan Ginsberg
Better Get Hit In Your Soul - Charles Mingus
In A Silent Way/It's About That Time - Miles Davis
Wild Man Blues - Louis Armstrong
Ptah, The El Daoud - Alice Coltrane
Highland Cathedral - Glasgow Schools Pipes, Orchestra & Choir
Ooh no rock is hard, but here goes
1)Judy Collins - Amazing Grace
2)The Corries - Flower of Scotland
3)Dave Brubeck - Take 5
4)Peggy Lee - He's a Tramp
5)Beethoven - Ode to Joy
6)Monty Python - Medical Love Song
7)Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
8)Bugsy Malone soundtrack - Bad Guys
Don't you mean "so you want to be a boxer"
by far the best tune : )
don't be silly, man...
Bad Guys is the top tune from that movie!
Oh Jesus. It's come to this...arguing the best song from kids movies!
Actually, truth be told, I'm rather partial to the song they do at the end which is sorta like 'Bad Guys' but with the mass singalong. You know the one...
it has it's moments but this is just pure class
one thing that has rankled me
since seeing bugsy as a kid how come some times the custard pies and splat guns "kill" you and sometimes like at the end they are just custard pies oh and why i have I still not got a splat gun?
splat guns
see this is it...any scientists reading this, will you PLEASE stop working on a cure for the common cold. We can learn to live with it. We'll be fine.
Instead, would you be good enough to direct ALL your creative energies to devising the manufacture of a reliable splurge gun...
I wouldn't have guessed
that choosing a song from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack would cause so much discussion!
Any chance of taking Desmond Carrington as the “luxury item”?
Frank Sinatra - I Will Drink The Wine
Handel - Zadok The Priest
Louis Armstrong - That’s My Home
Erik Satie - Gymnopedic No.1
Morecambe & Wise - Positive Thinking
The Four King Cousins - Let’s Get Away From It All
In The Bleak Midwinter by any half-decent choir
Leroy Anderson - Forgotten Dreams
Leroy Anderson
"Forgotten Dreams" - gorgeous piece of music. Wrote "Sleigh Ride" too, as I'm sure you know!
The list today
Well Kirsty, if asked me yesterday I would certainly have a different list, but since you have caught me today...
1. 51st Highland Division's Farewell To Sicily: Dick Gaughan (on Kist of Gold, not the later one)
2. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus) : Miles Davis
3. The Rite of Spring : Stravinsky
4. Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen (Rückert Lieder) by Mahler (you're going to make me choose, Kirsty, between Janet Baker and Fischer-Dieskau and Alice Coote . You're a hard woman, Kirsty. Fischer-Dieskau...).
5. Green Grow The Rushes-O by Altan
6. Quintet from Act 3 of Die Meistersingers von Nurnberg by Wagner (by almost anybody, frankly)
7. Junco Partner by James Booker
8. Gold Watch and Chain by Emmylou Harris
(Not sure I am quite with the premise though, about what it "should" be about. I am not so old, or so English that, say, Flanders and Swann or Gilbert & Sullivan meant anything . (I think we found Radio 2 baffling in the 1970s.) But if you are talking childhood and picking stuff of pure sentimental value then Elvis Presley and The Beatles and The Beach Boys and even (ahem) Gary Glitter and Slade were always right there for me, along with bits of country and Irishness. Jazz and classical and the blues came later. And on the principle that Rockaway Beach is consistently the most played thing on my iPod I would have to have that too.
I wonder if Kirsty will let me play Gary Glitter.)
That was fun , wanna do that again.
Maybe tomorrow. It will be a different list. I am that shallow.
Another day, another island
1. McCrimmon's Lament by Heather Heywood
2. A Smiling Shore by June Tabor
3. Signal For Lara by Superblue
4, He Called Me Baby by Patsy Cline
5. Diáspora Sefardí by Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI
6. Rocky Road To Dublin by The Dubliners
7. Jardin du sommeil d'amour from Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony
8. La Valse Du Bambocheur (The Drunkard's Sorrow Waltz) by The Balfa Brothers
Lot of islands...could be quite an archipelago.
Good thread
I love pretentious wank, me!
1. The Ying Tong Song - The Goons
2. I've Got You Under My Skin - Frank Sinatra
3. Clare de Lune - Claude Debussy
5. On Again, On Again - Jake Thackray
6. Oriental Shuffle - Django Rheindhart
7. You'll Have Had Your Tea (The Doings of Hamish and Dougal)
8. Venus The Bringer of Peace - Gustav Holst
There would really be some rock but ...
My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose / Black Dyke Mills (featuring cornet)
Portrait Of My Love / Matt Monro
Nimrod / Elgar
My Lady's A Wild Flying Dove / Tom Paxton
I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again / Original Cast
The Shadow of Your Smile / Tommy Whittle Quartet - Sax for Dreamers
Jerusalem / some big choral version
Begin The Beguine / recording of my late father singing
My non-rocked up eight would be...
1. Elgar's Cello Concerto - controversially I'm rather fonder of the Julian Lloyd Webber/Yehudi Menuhin version than either of the du Pre recordings
2. Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World - a ukulele version by my friend, Victoria Vox (based on Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's sublime version)
3. Strange Fruit - Billie Holliday
4. Toccata from Symphony No 5 Op 42 - Widor
5. Appalachian Spring - Aaron Copeland
6. Blue Planet - an ambient piece built up from looping solo bass by my friend Steve Lawson (we're seriously talking "sonic cathedrals of sound" here!)
7. The Lord's Seat - Gordon Giltrap
8. St Paul's Suite Op 29/2 - Holst
here are mine
Could have just chosen 8 Hank Williams songs
1)New World Symphony- Antonín Dvořák
2)Minor Swing - Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli
3)It's a Mean Old World- Rev Pearly Brown
4)My Funny Valentine- Chet Baker
5)I Don't Love Nobody- Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys
6)Mean Woman with Green Eyes- Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys
7)What Ever Happened To The Likely Lads (radio series)
8)Trifling Woman - Black Ace
and Anything with Danny Baker
some country, a few laughs and a couple of concertos
1. Some old Goons radio recordings
2. some Monty Python songs (I'm so worried, I like Chinese)
3. A CD of Tchaikovsky piano concertos
4. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
5. Johnny Cash's prison albums
6. Miles Davis Bitches Brew
7. A recording of Alan Clarke's diaries
8. Morricone film themes or maybe the James Bond album.
having had a good nights sleep
santana - song of the wind
miles davis - in a silent way
keith jarrett long as you know you're living yours
keith jarrett koln concert
bobby bland - aint nothin you can do
davey graham - angie
junior wells - stop breaking down
dollar brand - mannenberg
les wanyika - sina makosa
beethoven opus 61 -isaac stern
Academic really
because without any P-funk, Beatles, Little Feat, Martyn, Metheny or Mitchell I'd probably just surrender myself to the Smoke Monster!
1. Cinema Paradiso soundtrack - Ennio Morricone
2. Come Again - Derek and Clive
3. South Pacific OST
4. Polovtsian Dances - Borodin
5. Close To Home - Lyle Mays
6. Collection of "Round The Horne"s
7. Rhapsody in Blue - George Gershwin
8. The Firebird Suite (to remind me of Yes gigs) - Igor Stravinsky
Just being pedantic
The crowd at Cardiff Arms Park never sang "Land of my Fathers". They did sing (me amongst them many times) Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.
Nice choice though.
I like this one but...
How long have I got to think stuff up that will impress everyone???
GMT-8
Take your time
No hurry.
After editing out a couple that've already been selected..
here's today's list - I could create a few more with things I like equally well or to which I just have a sentimental or personal attachment.
1. Django Reinhardt's - "Nuages" - nty-nth version (see below*)
2. Niko Mamangakis' - one of the solo guitar pieces from the soundtracks to "Heimat"/"Zweite Heimat", probably "Klarchenlied"
3. Vaughan Williams - "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis"
4. Tom Lehrer - The Elements.
5. Bach's Prelude #1 in C, Book 1 of "The Well-tempered Clavier"
6. Purcell's "When I am laid in Earth" from "Dido and Aeneas"
7. Vaughan Williams' 1953 coronation setting of the Old 100th.
8. Flanders & Swann's "To Kokoraki" (more Swann than Flanders, a Greek song on "Old MacDonald had a farm" lines)
* If anyone can help me track down this atmospheric 1950s electric version in digital form, I'd be deeply grateful - it's from an old Odeon(?) vinyl compilation in a blue sleeve which I mislaid many moons ago, and I've failed to find it since despite plenty of trying. It's not, to the best of my knowledge, on Spotify.
Dido's Lament
Re #6: happened to hear it for first time last week about 3m 40 into this:
can understand your enthusiasm-any particular recording you like ?
As for Nuages, this guy
http://www.gould68.freeserve.co.uk/nuages.htm
seems to have codified 13 ! recordings of it by Django ... I can see why you might have a problem tracking it down
(edit: only 3 seem to be electric though so maybe that help after all ?)
Could that blue sleeve be Blue Star
In which case it would perhaps indeed be the 53 version on here ?
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/arti0301_04.htm
Many thanks for the helpful links Nick -
they're very informative and prompted me to return to the search anew. However I've discovered that I've got things wrong as usual. After spotify-scanning I discover that I located the version I refer to (or one very close to it) and added it to the Word Massive's "So What's Jazz" playlist http://open.spotify.com/user/hubejr/playlist/6naqKpuKQyQLNUTeN6HYxQ
some time back. It's probably a recording from 1949 or thereabouts. I also found (and added) a different electric Nuages that's something of a gem too.
As for Purcell
it was a toss-up between Dido's Lament and a hymn tune known as "Westminster Abbey" based on a theme by Purcell.
I don't have a recommended performance as such - there are certainly plenty about. When it first made an impression on me it was in a performance sung by a German singer who sang it in very clearly enunciated English but with rolled r's (No t-r-r-r-ouble....). It's the musical structure that gets to me as much as anything.
Given the way you came across it,the distinctly un-classical version below might be of interest. My understanding is that a "ground bass" as mentioned was often a platform for improvisation and embellishemnt so to me it's potentially in the spirit of the time. It's probably about as far as it could be taken from its traditional arrangement.
was delighted to hear it live recently,
unexpectedly, not heaving read programme closely, done by the AAM and Carolyn Sampson. Bought the AAM Catherine Bott version at the concert, I also see the Penguin guide gave a rosette to Janet Baker's 1962 recording:
(as the encore was Handel's "Eternal Source of Light Divine"--they had a baroque trumpet handy--I left a very happy bunny)
Thanks
had completely forgotten about that Jazz playlist and will enjoy dipping into it.
And for the alternate Purcell version.
So much music - so little time.
As of now:
1. Chet baker - My Funny Valentine(So perfect)
2. Eric Satie - No. 3 Gymnopédie( First heard on a Woody Allen movie)
3. The Bothy Band - Martin Wynne's/The Longford Tinker (Mighty track by the Rolling Stones of Irish music)
4. The Clitheroe Kid (From when I was little)
5. Ella Fitzgerald - Manhatten (A perfect singer - a perfect song - one of the few music items her indoors and I agree on).
6. Donovan - The Owl and the Pussycat. (From when my kids were little)
7. Miles davis - Sketches of Spain (Heard and loved this when I thought Miles was just another bloke).
8. Blade Runner (OST) - Rachel's Song - Mary Hopkin (Again perfect music from a perfect film).
Subs Bench:
9: Puchini - O Mia Bambino Caro (A beautiful song to be wrapped up in when sky's are grey).
10: I know it's rock but - Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky (Cause while not a big floyd fan just love this.
Ella Fitzgerald's "I'll Take Manhattan".
This is one of those records that I've always been aware of but it's only in the last few months - when I heard it on the soundtrack of "Mad Men" - that I realised how utterly perfect it is. There is more artistry in the two minutes 49 of this performance (the singing, the arrangement, the rhymes that come in the middle of the lines and that final joke about a boy and "goil") than most people pack into a lifetime.
Michael Ball
played it on his R2 show this morning. Wonderful.
[on another note: anyone else think that Michael Ball's Sunday show is a little gem? So much better than when Michael Parkinson was doing it]
Yes, good show
Parky had been past his sell by date for some time. Subtly modernised it while still ensuring classics like Manhattan make up the bulk of the playlist.
Isn't it just.
Always felt that I should'nt like Ella.
Unlike Billie Holiday and others - no edge, no drama.
But there is no getting away from the fact that her's is the perfect voice and boy can she swing - check out her Live in Berlin album.
Oh indeed
I did Technical Drawing "O" Level. I did enough to pass, but my main memory is an ongoing argument with the teacher about the relative merits of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. I had an early infatuation with Billie's early stuff with Teddy Wilson and Lester Young and Count Basie (the greatest version of "Those Foolish Things"...), whereas he was Ella's, but I am coming round.
A Big Up to Mr. Percival !
sounds like you went to this school
On a good day...
(says he, wistfully).
Better, actually. They didn't make us do Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
These eight would do nicely...
Nic Jones - 10,000 Miles (off "From the Devil to a Stranger")
Waterson Carthy - Sleep on Beloved
Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck - anything from "Djam Leelii"
Keith Jarrett - La Scala
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Dolores in a Shoestand (live)
Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli
The Australian poet Les Murray reading his poem "The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle"
For now it would be
1. In Paradiso - Faure
2. Avocet - Bert Jansch
3. Moon River - Danny Williams
4. Piano Conc.G Maj 2nd mvt. - Ravel
5. Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood _ Sandy Denny
6. Smokestack Lightning - Howling Wolf
7. Round Midnight - Thelonius Monk
8. A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke.
This is very difficult, as it could be so many other choices as well, but this would be for today.
My turn...
1. Dam Busters march
2. Four Quartets read by Alec Guinness
3. Lush Life by John Coltrane
4. Winkle Picker Blues by Bernard Cribbins
5. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat by Charlie Mingus
6. Keeoaddi There by Incredible String Band
7. The Quangle Wangle's Hat by Elton Hayes
8. Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams
Of course I might be persuaded to swap them all for Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles...
I'll Have a Go
1 Leiberstraum - Lizst
2 Fugue From First Violin Sonata; Bach - Julian Bream
3 Shhh Peaceful - Miles Davis
4 Blue in Green - Bill Evans Trio
5 Watermellon Man (1973 recording) - Herbie Hancock
6 In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down - Leadbelly
7 Keep it to Yourself - Sony Boy Williamson II
8 Sheep Season - Mellow Candle
9 America Has Spoken/ KFC Famous Bowls - Patton Oswalt
10 The Undoing of a Man (spoken word piece) - Henry Rollins
Here's my Eight
I've Got You Under My Skin - Mr Sinatra
Don't Fence Me In - Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters
Femmes Africanes - Sam Mangwana
They All Laughed - Stacey Kent
You Don't Know Me - Ray Charles
Accentuate the Positive - Bing and the sisters again
Someone to Watch Over Me - Willie Nelson
Moon River - Audrey Hepburn
Four from childhood, four from later life
Psalm 23, 'The Lord is my Shepherd', Crimond version
Frank Crumit, 'Donald the Dub'
Flanders and Swann, 'The Gas Man Cometh'
Bob Newhart, 'Driving Instructor'
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2, Vladimir Ashkenazy
Gerald Finzi, 'Romance in E Flat'
Peter Maxwell Davies, 'Farewell to Stromness'
Richard and Linda Thompson, 'A Heart Needs a Home' (from the OGWT DVD)
Me next..
Me and my brother and mate 'acting' 'The raid on St. Nazaire' (sic?) circa 1972 from the Valiant Annual with sound effects from BBC records (tumult of war) and Great Movie Themes, currently on a Dixons own Brand C90.
'To hell with a hangover' Jock Scot and Gareth Sager
'The Scarlet Capsule' The Goons
Me and my brother and (another) mate (RIP) attempting to play 'Get it on' with a Woolworth's electric guitar and Quality Street tins for drums. Currently on BASF C120 but too nervous to play on my cassette player (ask your dad)
'Hoor de Vogel' EP of bird songs
'Geordie Sunday' (B-side Jackie Charlton, oh yes) found on a skip 45rpm on the Bell record label circa 1972
'A Child's Christmas in Wales' Dylan Thomas read by the author on an LP of Thomas in America
"A Dream of the Future' Carter Burwell, finale to 'Raising Arizona' without, alas the words spoken by Nicolas Cage
LA Riots (step on the gas) but nothing else by Bill Hicks
A la recherche, Take II
If my memory could *really* take me back, these are some of the Time Windows [*] I would choose to open (cheating a couple of times):
1. The last post-played by a military band at Beaulieu one glorious summer evening in the early 70s.
2. Johnny Dankworth's Tomorrow's World theme
3. Dvorak's Serenade for Strings-my younger sister on the way.
4. The Koln Concert-well before its imapact diminished a bit by familarity, when I heard it in "The Real Thing", and later in Roeg's "Bad Timing".
5. Skynyrd's "Freebird", last day of my first year at university ... "If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me".
6. Faure Requiem, Hythe, mid-70s, my brother doing the solo in Pie Jesu-my voice was too "impure" ;-)
7. Alan Bennett-"I wish to send a telegram"-sharing radio comedy as a family (ditto Morecambe and Wise, TV).
8. "More than a feeling"-Boston, in, er, Boston-packing boxes in the post office after a 5 month visit.
[* the best name for an electrostatic speaker ever,
http://r.duffy.home.att.net/dcm/, I think Douglas Adams had some ]
[That's enough cliche-Ed.]
He said
non rock records Nick
Fair enough
Let's sub these then:
Per A Ser Cantada En La Meva Nit-Arianna Savall
and
Have you seen but a bright lily grow-Dowland Project
beach holiday, Greece, 2009, water lapping, Apple Lossless, nice headphones ...
I have been mostly thinking about noises
1. The slow, grinding approach to Waterloo station from the south (screeching, clattering rail noises).
2. Wimbledon tennis. A Centre Court match without commentary but with all other noises. The umpire can tell me the score and I can imagine the rest. I have a lot of time on my hands.
3. BBC Radio Polyphonic Dr Who theme tune.
4. Kenneth Williams reading something on Jackanory.
5. Teach Yourself Maori CD set. I know alot of the words already, so it will be good to become more fluent.
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (i.e. the film, but sound only)
7. Traffic noise in London.
8. Eddie Izzard live show.
My Eight
1. O Mio Babbino Caro - Cabballe Montserrat
2. I'd Rather Go Blind - Etta James
3. Take These Chains From My Heart - Hank Williams
4. Scheharazade - Rimsky-Korsakov
5. Smokestack Lightnin' - Howlin Wolf
6. I Wish You Would - Billy Boy Arnold
7. Cucurrucucu Paloma - Caetano Veloso
8. Three Questions - Bonnie Prince Billy
4 and 7
certainly float my non-rock boat too, though for very different reasons. On that sort of basis I find the lists here a good deal more interesting than much other list-making, especially as the weasel-word "best" is absent from the criteria.
- Shostakovich String
- Shostakovich String Quartet #8
- Handel Messiah
- Mozart Mass in C minor
- Schubert String Quintet
- Beethoven Symphony 5 (contrary to above, the final movement is the most uplifting of all)
- Bach St John Passion
- Durufle Requiem
- Mozart Soave sia il vento, from Cosi Fan Tutte
I'll be singing along
Good choice with the TW theme
I hadn't heard the Dankworth version of the Tomorrow's World theme, good choice. However,I'm still a big fan of the more familiar one. They both swing, but this one also rocks. Ah, but that would disqualify it. Bugger.
Thanks DH for this thread. I remember when Q did a survey of people's favourite albums, they asked people not to choose albums because of received opinion about what was classic. Choose something you yourself are passionate about, even if it's Angel's Egg by Gong. Oh...did I just say that out loud?
1. The Three Graces - Jeff Beal
2. Behind The Gardens, Under The Tree - Andreas Vollenweider
3. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - Vaughn Williams
4. Constitutional peasants scene from Monty Python & The Holy Grail ("we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune")
5. Apollo Atmospheres - Eno
6. Saturday Night in Bombay - John McLaughlin
7. South American Getaway - from the sountrack to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
8. Just a Little Lovin' - Shelby Lynne
I think
you are ascribing far too much design to my choice ... it was just the first one I could find ... great to hear the version that would accompany my childhood viewings of Burke, Baxter and the wonders of The Future ...
Ask me again tomorrow ...
No particular order:
1. St. Paul's Suite (Holst/Marriner)
3. Spanish Dance No. 2 (Granados/Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya)
4. Spanish Dance No. 5 (Granados/John Williams)
5. Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Tarrega/John Williams)
6. The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams/Marriner)
7. The Testament of Tristan (Bernart de Ventadorn/Martin Best)
8. Six Gnossienes (Satie/Aldo Ciccolini)
If you are still reading this far down......
1. Discreet Music - Brian Eno
2. Come Out - Steve Reich
3. Sweet Georgia Brown - Oscar Peterson
4. Sexual Harrasment Panda Theme Song - South Park
5. Carol Brown - Flight of the Conchords
6. My Cyaan Believe It - Michael Smith
7. Fraser Digby's Washbag (any version) - Danny Baker 606
8. Polka - William Walton (Facade)
Michael Smith
Nice to see a mention of the great Michael Smith. "Trainer" would be one of my tracks for a desert island if ... well, if I hadn't already chosen 8 others.
One day we may have a "favourite LPs that have never been released on CD" thread, and I shall nominate "Mi Cyaan Believe it" straight away. What a powerful work it is, and what an honest voice was silenced so young.
A strange premise
I disagree with DH's premise about rock records on DID being "false in that context... as if they've been chosen to prove how edgy you are". So much is about the context of the choice. If for instance my wife were (for reasons as yet unknown) to appear on DID and she made a selection that failed to include something by either Elvis Presley or Jackson Browne I'd say she wasn't being true to herself, but in choosing something by them the last thing she's want to be doing was to show how edgy she was.
I'd agree there are castaways whose selections don't ring true but it's not something that applies to all the guests. A bit of conversation around the particular choice often helps in spotting a wrong 'un.
I can think of a couple of examples of castaways' choices being dictated by circumstance. Kristin Scott Thomas's choice of John Martyn's Spencer the Rover being one. Another was Brian Keenan choosing Van Morrison's Dweller On The Threshold which I recall I heard for a second time later that day when DH played it on his GLR show. Keenan's choice was guided by it being from one of the few records he and John McCarthy had access to in their captivity.
However for what it's worth, my non rock eight:
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4 - Murray Perahia / Bernard Haitink
Ave Maria from Monteverdis's Vespers of 1610 - John Eliot Gardener & Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra
Indoor Games At Newbury - John Betjeman
Duke Ellington - Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue (live at Newport 1956)
J S Bach - Kyrie Eleison from Mass in B Minor - Andrew Parrott / Taverner Consort and Players
Zahir Hussain with John McLaughlin, Jan Gabarek and Hariprasad Chaurasia - Making Music (title track of album of same name)
Miles Davis - Concierto de Aranjuez from Sketches of Spain
Bud Powell - Comin' Up from The Scene Changes
In making those choices and excluding any rock records I don't feel edgy but do feel a bit pretentious.
I agree
In fact, I think there are any number of DID guests who, lets's say, 'overplay' a love of what might be called rather more cerebral music because it gives them a little more intellectual credibility. Others, like the Cameron episode, illustrate an attempt to ingratiate with the hoi polloi.
That said, here's a list of stuff:
The "edginess" premise might be arguable
but I still think it's an interesting idea to ask for a non-rock selection of favourites, particularly under the aegis of a magazine with a strapline on each and every issue "Intelligent life on Planet Rock". There's plenty in life and life-experiences beyond it.
Planet Rock itself has often seemed a place inhabited by flat-earth conspiracists frightened of straying over the edge (or indeed anywhere near it) in musical or cultural terms - except in a few very-well-signposted directions.
It perhaps shouldn't be forgotten that the time when rock/pop really began to hit the cultural mainstream was when influences from outside it - whether intended or unintended - were both included, acknowledged, and then discussed.
This, by the way, is not an apology for or defence of the concept album or rock-opera... two of the more misguided manifestations of that original flowering.
By the way, what was the "dictated by circumstance" story behind the Kristin Scott-Thomas selection of "Spencer the Rover"?
KST and Spencer the Rover
As I recall it was a song that reminded her her of trips to the south of France with her then husband.
Thanks
I'm sure I listened to her selections at the time, but couldn't recall that being played.
Shouldn't you just choose
Shouldn't you just choose records that you like or that represent a particular time in your life? Anything else is just pretence.
On the nail
That to me is the premise of the show.
Having written above against DH's thesis, by way of supporting it I've since remembered reading some years back a gossipy piece complaining about a journalist (unnamed) who was due to appear on the show, canvassing opinion about which Dylan track he should select.
Not pretence, but playing the game
Given that those appearing on the show are in public life, and used to presenting a public face - the right outfit, the right words, the right places - it is surely not unexpected that a little bit of thinking goes on behind the choice of music?
Frankly...
it would have taken me longer to compile the non-non-rock-list. But I feel as it's not really a shame here...
My list:
1. Chet Baker - The Best of Chet Baker sings
2. Johannes Brahms - Hungarian Dances
3. Miles Davis - L'ascenseur pour l'echafaud
4. Yann Tiersen - Music from Amélie
5. Soundtrack of "C'era una volta il west"
6. The Phantom of the Opera (I don't know why I like it, but I do...)
7. Ella Fitzgerald / Chick Webb - Ella and Chick Webb 1938/39
8. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - The Original Lost Elektra Session
Well,
since you ask, it ain't going to be particularly original but....
- Miles Davis Kind of Blue
- Pat Metheny Works
- ...and Works II
- Dave Brubeck Time Out
- Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries
- Lyle Mays Street Dreams
- Wyndham Hill Guitar Sampler
- ...
sorry, I'm going to have to throw in some rock from here on.
Much too late, of course,
Much too late, of course, but:
"We Shall Overcome" - Bruce Springsteen (allowed, surely)
"Spem In Alium" - Thomas Tallis (as performed by the Huelgas Enesemble)
"Sidh Beag agus Sidh Mor" - Carolan
"Parce Mihi Dominum"- Morales (as performed by Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble)
"Concierto de Aranjuez" - Rodrigo
"Oye Com Va" - Tito Puente
"Fratres" - Arvo Part
"I Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody" - Choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church
Eight non-rock albums...
1. Sir Henry At Rawlinson End - Viv Stanshall
2. Message From The Meditations - The Meditations
3. Two Sevens Clash - Culture
4. Monty Python's Previous Record
5. Kirk's Work - Roland Kirk
6. The Sidewinder - Lee Morgan
7. The Complete I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on CD (all 59 series or whatever it's up to now)
8. Tom Tom The Piper's Son - Tommy Cooper (for sentimental reasons)