My Desert Island Discs

A discussion with some friends recently touched on the subject of "desert island discs".

As the whole world probably knows, Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio show where various notable people list the eight songs they would bring with them to a desert island. (Originally, they were gramophone records). I've only heard a few episodes of the show, but I understand that the songs are supposed to act as a sort of window into the person's life. They can also bring a book (the Bible and the Works of Shakespeare are presumed to be on the island already) and an inanimate object. In between songs, the host interviews the guest about his or her life.

The format is one of those absurdly simple but brilliant ideas, and sprang from the brain of its original presenter, Roy Plomley.

There is an online archive of the show going back to 1959. It includes Philip Larkin and Keith Waterhouse, which are the only episodes I've listened to myself, that I can remember.

I have no idea what book I'd bring to the island. Probably a big thick history book, perhaps a history of the Catholic Church, that I could read over and over again.

Nor do I know what inanimate object I'd bring. For all my love of snow globes, probably not one of those.

But these are the songs I came up with. As I've often said before, I have a very unsophisticated and uncultured taste in music, which I don't defend. But it's my taste. There's no point listening to music you don't honestly like, after having given it a fair hearing.

1) The Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin are my favourite band. Which is appallingly middle-of-the-road and unoriginal, but so it is. This song is taken from Led Zeppelin IV (an album which officially has no name), which might be the greatest album ever made.

I love the sense of high drama and grandiosity in this song. It seems to encapsulate the battle between good and evil that has raged all through history. The chords evoke the clash of swords heard from afar, and it has one of the greatest, most evocative lines ever: "The Dark Lord rides in force tonight".

I've chosen only one song from each band or artist, otherwise I could almost have filled the list with Zeppelin.

2) Night Fever by the Bee Gees

This is my single favourite song of all time, though I somehow didn't hear it until my thirties. I like how shimmering and sparkly it is. It's the audio equivalent of a disco ball, and I love disco balls.

I've probably been to fewer parties than anybody reading this, but the song perfectly evokes the feeling of a night out when you're really up for it. And it's so seventies. I love the seventies.

3) Barley and Grape Rag by Rory Gallagher

I discovered Rory Gallagher in my late teens, when his popularity was at its lowest, a few years before he died and came back into favour. It was almost impossible to get his records anywhere, and this was before the internet.

To be honest I rarely listen to him now, but he was the musical hero of a good few years of my life, and this was my favourite of his songs. I listened to it over and over. It has fine lyrics, especially the phrase: "Where the whiskey flows and the dices roll till dawn."

4) A Day in the Life by the Beatles

If you're in the right mood, this is the sort of song that makes you feel like you're floating. Somehow it seems to chip away at the very fabric of accepted reality, like Prospero's "Our revels now are ended" speech in The Tempest. It also seems to sum up the euphoria and disorientation of the sixties, which can still be vicariously experienced by those who never lived through them. I first heard this song while I was lodging in Stillorgan, around 2006, feeling very lonely and lost.

5) Don't Tread On Me by Metallica

I listened to the Black Album by Metallica over and over again in the mid-nineties, in my late teens. I particularly associate this song with a game I used to play with my brothers, a board game called History of the World. This seemed symbolic to me of a new world opening up to me. While I had regarded adulthood with great trepidation, this song inspired me to view it with some confidence.

6) Mama Weer All Crazee Now by Slade

To me, this song is like a shot of pure euphoria, good-humoured and unpretentious euphoria. I can't really analyse it more than that. I could equally have chosen "Cum On Feel the Noyze", which seems like a companion piece. Despite being melancholic by nature, I've also always felt that life can just as easily be seen as one big party, one big romp.

7) Estranged by Guns 'n' Roses

Guns 'n' Roses were the musical phenomenon of my teens, and the hype when they came to the Slane Festival in county Meath in 1992 was phenomenal.

For once, I agreed with my peers on something. Although many consider Appetite for Destruction their best album, I much preferred Use Your Illusion II, which I've probably listened to more than any other album. (Bizarrely, I never listened to Use Your Illusion I, or at least not until many years later.)

Guns 'n' Roses seem like the soundtrack to my youth, in many ways. I can remember never-ending soccer games on a tarmac pitch in Ballymun, while the girls standing on the edge (and sometimes joining in) played Don't Cry over and over. But my favourite song on Use Your Illusion II was this one, which is often gorgeous and wistful and haunting.

8) Sally McLenane by the Pogues

One of those "wear out the needle" songs of my teens, when I was indeed playing music on a turntable. "Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours" expressed my own sense of alienation, of feeling like an outsider, as a teenager.

So, there you go. What are your desert island discs?