About six months ago I resolved to update my desert island discs selection. Choosing my favourite tracks started at a dinner party (what happened to them?) twenty years ago. I revised them ten years ago and, as another BIG birthday looms, it is time to review them again…but with a day to go I still have not finalised my selection.
I saw Paul McCartney only last year. It was a memorable concert. I recognised every song – some heard for the first time on the radio at Nana’s when I was about five and not immune, even then, to Beatlemania. Others as an undergraduate student listening to my friend Rosemary’s Wings album as Band on the Run played again and again on her record player. But despite my enjoyment of the octogenarian scouser I am afraid the Beatles’ In My Life will not survive. I recently heard Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain on Radio 6. It still sounded fresh. I did see them (I think during the last decade – though maybe it was the previous one) at Manchester University Students’ Union- though ‘see’ is perhaps not an accurate description because there was so much dry ice wafting around the stage is was like viewing through a London fog. The sound was still incredible though. Ian McCulloch you are replacing the Fab Four.
Ocean Rain https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/3r92A6qjrG4sihvzl2nZDi?utm_source=generator&si=77362b4824a1469b
One of the best acts I did see before the pandemic was Earth, Wind and Fire at Manchester’s Apollo. They were still a great visual spectacle. Philip Bailey’s son takes over the vocals in the second half of the performance now. They struck me as a band who know how to age gracefully. Got to Get you into My Life would be my nomination, but it is not an easy choice. There are so many memorable songs. 80s rapper Melle Mel, creator of White Lines (Don’t Do It) was also in the frame. I saw him with the survivors of the Furious Five pre-pandemic – twice within a few weeks because they were so good. They greedily occupied two tracks on my 2006 desert island disc and Melle was also under consideration along with Chaka Khan, having rapped on the intro of I Feel For You. But the competition is fierce and Melle Mel, like Pharrell Williams (NERD) is giving way to funk in this year’s choice of top discs.
Got to Get You Into My Life https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/4vGQNeWAh2WKPYsqhp5wSg?utm_source=generator&si=03c7d9996e994bdb
Also seen recently at the Apollo is Paul Weller – always a great concert. I have enjoyed his music as a member of The Jam and Style Council as well as his more recent solo career. I did contemplate the Style Council’s You’re the Best Thing but I am afraid, as I was compiling this list, I heard a track on Radio 6 which pushed Paul out of the contest. Mark E Smith’s The Fall singing Hit the North always makes me want to dance – I think that is the influence of Brix Smith on the video. The Fall it is.
Hit the North https://open.spotify.com/track/0XciPb5F3Sm9eDOfUVLDhO?si=a6292d7e094a47b4
David Bowie survived the last edit albeit singing Life on Mars rather than Ziggy Stardust. I went to see the immersive video exhibition You’re Not Alone at Kings Cross and was struck by how young he was when he sang Heroes. In fact, it looks like the 1978 concert I saw him play in Newcastle- a mesmerising performance. He just seemed to magically appear on the stage. That was in the days when top performers appeared in concert halls. I had a very different experience a few years later at Milton Keynes. I can now see from the footage that I was relatively near the front, but I could see nothing. I am sure I am not the only one who connects Bowie’s performance of Heroes to Live Aid in 1985. Since its release in 1977 so much has happened – no Berlin Wall – no David Bowie, either. Tony Visconti, Woody Woodmansey and Glenn Gregory are touring for the last time as Holy Holy performing the Bowie catalogue and I was lucky enough to see Mike Garson’s band including Corey Glover performing A Celebration of Bowie just a month before the pandemic. But David himself carries on in my final eight, this time singing Heroes.
Heroes https://open.spotify.com/track/0WkxEasbtL1Z6KKxerPDtG?si=aa0fd92e6b3d4c52
I still love the Kinks’ music but somehow David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick’s Temptations have previously escaped selection. My choice is Ain’t Too Proud To Beg. I must admit that this is influenced by a Live Aid performance. I recall one of the highlights from the American leg was Daryl Hall and John Oates introducing Eddie Kendricks and Jimmy Ruffin onto the stage. They were incredibly slim – a legacy of ill health and prison time I think. The voices were still captivating though. They had performed at the New York Apollo a couple of months earlier with Hall and Oates so their moves were well rehearsed.
Ain’t Too Proud To Beg https://open.spotify.com/track/56Hjc2nyNX5JHiO8aV6jVi?si=816129be1c624a3d
There are no women in my chart. Apologies. Joan Armatrading made the cut in the 2006 edit but there have been none since. Yet there are wonderful women- Debbie Harry performing with Blondie is still amazing, as I witnessed last year at Halifax’s Piece Hall. Pauline Black is still a commanding presence in The Selecter. New artists such as Greentea Peng (Stones Throw) and Nadine Shah (Topless Mother) are played on Craig Charles afternoon BBC Radio 6 show. I do like them, but not enough. I also came across Deftones’ last release Infinite Source on this programme, assuming they were a new band but in fact they have been creating music for decades and can sell out Europe’s biggest music arena, Co-op Live, in hours. I also considered Young Fathers to be a new band until I realised they had been around for over a decade. I do love I Saw, but that does not make my final list either. I guess my selection is based on the memories they evoke as much as the music alone.
I saw Sananda Maitraya at Manchester’s The Ritz earlier this year. He still has the voice though he avoided the moves he made famous as Terrence Trent Darby. Wishing Well– which I first witnessed when he was supporting Simply Red in the eighties was under consideration for the list but I cannot exclude Oasis. I feel there are so many of their tracks I could choose, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Supersonic, Acquiescence…Despite spending a day on the phone a year ago trying to get tickets for an Oasis concert this summer I failed. But I have loved the revival of their music which was also the sound track to my football club’s difficult years in the nineties. Follow Manchester City, follow Oasis. I saw them before they split up at Heaton Park in the nineties. There was a power cut briefly and when they returned to the stage Liam promised everyone a refund against Noel’s exasperated protests. I got a refund.
I am going to choose Don’t Look Back in Anger again, but this time for different reasons. Following the dreadful suicide bomb attack which killed 22 at Manchester Arena following an Arianne Grande concert in June 2017 this song became very poignant. The leaders of Manchester brought a city together which could have been torn apart. There was a vigil the day after during which poet Tony Walsh read This is the Place. On the Thursday, after a minute’s silence to remember the victims, Lydia Bernsmeier-Rullow spontaneously sang Don’t Look Back in Anger and others joined in. This has become an anthem for the city.
Don’t Look Back in Anger https://open.spotify.com/track/7ppPZa3TRUSGKaks9wH7VT?si=50feab94d6f447f6
I have come to like The Smiths music relatively recently, I think as a result of seeing Rick Astley and Blossoms perform at Glastonbury on TV. I did consider Johnny Marr singing There is a Light That Will Never Go Out. However, I am still moved by Love Will Tear Us Apart. But equally I never tire of Blue Monday so I will replace Joy Division with New Order.
Blue Monday https://open.spotify.com/track/31MOjWj3CT3dCQsMV2b8Wu?si=3af8993397954b3b
I only ever listen to Teddy Afro singing Minilik when I play it as, of course, it is never on the radio, so I have never tired of being moved by the haunting vocals. I did wonder about replacing it with a Bueno Vista Social Club track such as Chan Chan, which recalls a wonderful holiday in Cuba or Sarkodie, who I saw at the Albert Hall following a holiday in Ghana, but Teddy and Ethiopia win.
Along with the bible, which I would choose to be the Ethiopian version in the expectation that I would be able to study the differences with the English Standard version (but could I?), I would select a collection of Tony Walsh’s poems, Sex & Love & Rock and Roll. I seem to have been very worthy in my choice of luxury item last time- a language course! This time I will choose something more indulgent – a comfy feather pillow encased in a 400 thread Egyptian cotton pillowcase.
Tony Walsh: This is the Place
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-40027816
Not on the list this time. Melle Mel, creator of White Lines (Don’t Do It ) without the Furious Five or Grandmaster Flash.
A link to my 2016 choices below…
