I heard the end of an old edition of Desert Island Discs on the radio recently, and the inmate chose Heavy Metal band Arch Enemy as one of their pieces. It was someone no doubt famous in their field but unknown to me, and I got to thinking that properly famous people probably don’t choose their actual favourite music as it would clash with their “persona”. I offer as evidence David Cameron & Ed Miliband’s selections, which show all the signs of being picked for a purpose.*
David Cameron’s Desert Island Discs:
1. Bob Dylan – Tangled Up In Blue 2. Benny Hill – Ernie
3. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
4. Felix Mendelssohn (performed by Kiri Te Kanawa) – O, For the Wings of a Dove 5. Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees
6. The Smiths – This Charming Man 7. REM – Perfect Circle
8. The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done
Book: The River Cottage Cookbook – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Ed Miliband’s Desert Island Discs:
1. South African national anthem (Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika)
2. Hubert Parry – Jerusalem3. Paul Robeson – Ballad of Joe Hill
4. A-ha – Take On Me 5. Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline
6. Robbie Williams – Angels 7. Josh Ritter – Change of Time
8. Edith Piaf – Je Ne Regrette Rien
Book: James Joyce Ulysses
Cameron may actually like both Radiohead and Benny Hill, I mean read other posts on this blog for some unlikely to meet on a playlist artists. Ed’s list however strikes me as a bit too contrived to appear on the car mixtape of a Sunday afternoon.
So to make Desert Island Discs a bit less bland we need less famous people as they have more radical tastes than well known people. I tried this theory out on Twitter and Facebook and it works. A couple of votes for 1970s Miles Davis (‘Miles Runs the Voodoo Down’ & ‘On the Corner’), several for various bits of King Crimson, Nick Drake, surprising amounts of Country and Folk, and Saxon. This is of course completely unscientific but gives me hope that someone may ask for my picks one day. So please take note of…
1. Steely Dan – Aja, 2. Ramones – Rockaway Beach,
3. Over The Rhine – Latter Days, 4. France Gall – Evidemment,
5. The Beatles – The Long and Winding Road, 6. John Coltrane – Blue Train,
7. Beach Boys – God Only Knows, 8. John Martyn – May You Never
Book: Robert Byron – The Road To Oxiana
But if you ask me tomorrow…
* The information came from this Telegraph article.
