It set me thinking about the songs that provide the soundtrack to my life, as well as some of the tracks I really couldn’t do without if I were marooned on the eponymous island. So here goes…
1. Never Let Her Slip Away – Andrew Gold
I first heard this back in the 1970s when I was a kid. It is the consummate pop single in terms of construction, content and delivery – plus it has a great sax break. What I find curious about the song is that it engendered such an emotional reaction in me. I was genuinely moved – and this was at an age, as a pre-teen, when I couldn’t conceptualise the true depth of romantic love beyond a hopeless crush on Starsky and Hutch. Eitherway, it’s the perfect song about the breathless excitement of new love, and I love it.
2. Jimmy Mack – Martha and the Vandellas
The time of the excellent Motown revival. Anything by Diana Ross, Smokey, Marvin and Tammi or any of the Detroit stable would fit into this slot, but I remember hitting the floor and dancing like a loon to this track, played full blast at the school disco. Motown has stayed with me ever since, and I wouldn’t be without it.
3. Games Without Frontiers – Peter Gabriel
My reaction on hearing this for the first time was: from what ineffably weird place are these bizarre sounds emanating? But I adored it, and its spiky, stark simplicity was irresistable. This track was my first real encounter with electronic music, and it set me on a path of exploration from which I have become a huge aficionado of pioneering electronica and ambient, from early Human League, Gabriel and Eno, to present-day artists such as Boards of Canada and Jon Hopkins. Bleeps and squiggles are my thing. They have to be on the list.
4. Living On The Ceiling – Blancmange
Ah, sixth-form years… This period delivered a positively overwhelming amount of good music, and it’s so difficult to choose from anything that came out at the time: Costello, OMD, The Jam, Blondie, The Specials, Talking Heads, The Clash, you name it… but I dig this track. Plus you can dance to it – and on a desert island, there may be times when you simply need to get up and shake it loose. So Blancmange it is.
5. California Dreaming – Mamas and Papas
At my university, this was probably the most played track in the Student Union bar, and the reason we enjoyed it so much was because it was an antidote to all the massively right-on Smiths and Joy Division listening that was going on at the time. At an extremely activist, left-wing university, I didn’t wear top-to-toe black, sell the Socialist Worker or bash on incessantly about how much of a political genius Marx was. So some Californian music was, at least on an evening with mates over a few pints of Directors, a fine counterpoint to all the greyness of the Thatcher years.
6. Love Over Gold – Dire Straits
Yeah, you may knock me for this, but it’s the message of this song that lingers. Listen to it, and you’ll realise why. Plus it reminds me of a truly golden, happy time. I’m sorry I didn’t choose Tom Waits’ Ol’ 55, as it was a strong contender for the same slot, but this song really had to win out.
7. Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
I’m pretty much bypassing the late 1980s and early 1990s because they were a massive nadir for music. We can forget Aceeed and crap R&B and move on to some decent songwriting. I heard Crowded House’s first album back in 1989 – not a few years later, when everyone claimed them as their own – and Neil Finn’s sheer inspiration and craftsmanship had me in thrall. If I had to save one record from the deluge, it would be this one. When Paul McCartney was asked: ‘What’s it like to be the world’s greatest living songwriter?’ he replied: ‘I’ve no idea, as it’s Neil Finn.’ Couldn’t have put it better myself.
8. Northern Sky – Nick Drake
Yes, I know, everyone quotes Nick Drake these days (thanks, Brad Pitt, for nothing). I was introduced to Drake on arrival in London in 1994, and a wonderful world of music inhabited by people truly in the know. His three albums were a revelation, and since I’ve always had a folksy bent, I instantly adored them. This track narrowly pipped John Martyn to the post, as pretty much any of his songs – particularly from Solid Air or Grace and Danger – would do. However, it’s the optimism and soft delicacy of this song that always draws me in, as well as the textural gorgeousness of John Cale’s accompaniment on celeste. I never tire of it. Put simply, it’s pure magic.
9. One Moment More – Mindy Smith
A deeply poignant song, which I encountered on seeing Smith playing her first album live at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2004. She recollects the loss of her mother to cancer, and little more than a month later, I suddenly lost my own to the same after a long and incredibly courageous fight. My mother was a very fine woman, and so this is among my choices as a tribute to her. The song is heartrending and beautiful, and speaks for itself.
10. Touch Has A Memory – Pete Atkin
This brings us to the present day, and what I’m listening to now. The songbook of Pete Atkin and Clive James is so overlooked that it’s a positive crime. During the 1970s, Atkin and James produced several albums, and the best tracks from this have been rerecorded for a recent album called Midnight Voices. James’s lyrics are perceptive and gentle, lending themselves so well to Atkin’s melodies, and the latest arrangement of Touch is a little slice of perfection, delivered in such a way as to soothe the soul and genuinely touch the heart.
Lisa Cordaro, October 2010
