Desert Island Playlist: Part One
This list goes to eleven!
A number of things have changed since I moved my writing from Blogspot to Substack. I have cut back the frequency of my writing to “just” one or two times a week (maybe three if you count Postal History Sunday). I have allowed myself to re-work some older writings to make them better - and sometimes I rewrite them so much that they are practically new again. But, there are a few things that have fallen off my writing list because I’m not trying to put something out every single day.
For almost four years - and sporadically before that - I used Friday and Saturday blogs to share light-hearted posts. Fridays often featured Faux Real Stories and I frequently produced a monthly music playlist. In fact, you can probably dig a bunch of the music posts up if you want root around in the archive for the Genuine Faux Farm. Use the word “playlist” as a search term and I know you’ll find several entries.
Today, I thought I would go through the Desert Island Playlist exercise. The basic idea is that I will try to select THE eleven songs that I would want to have access to if I was only allowed that list for an extended period of time.
Now, let’s be clear here. I like music too much to want to be limited to only eleven tunes. And I am pretty sure that if eleven songs, no matter how good they are, might lose some luster if they were put on repeat for an extended period of time. So don’t ask me to actually go through with this! While I would still love these recordings, I suspect I would be unhappy to not have access to a much wider catalog!
For this entry, I’m going to introduce the idea and share the first five songs. That should keep this from becoming a novel in its own right! I’ll share the last six tunes next Saturday.
The Rules
So, let me start by outlining the rules, such as they are:
I am allowed to select only one song per artist.
And that’s it.
That should make it easy for you to play too!
As I was considering what to put into my list, I came to the realization that most - if not all - of the songs were going to be tunes I’ve enjoyed for quite awhile. That makes sense because, if I’ve been listening to them for several years, they’ve already stood the test of time.
I don’t know if some of you are like me. But, my musical tastes tend to move around a little bit. I can thoroughly enjoy a “new to me” piece until I’ve played it enough that I no longer take the same amount of pleasure from it. Some of those songs stop appearing in my personal playlists for a while and come back later. Others simply … don’t appear in playlists anymore. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good tunes and it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t like them. They just don’t hold me like they once did.
That’s probably what encouraged me to make the selections I made. These are songs that I have enjoyed for some time and I am STILL very happy to hear them, even though I know them well. I am afraid if I choose a song that is still pretty new to me, it will fall into the “don’t like it as much as I thought” category during my first week on the desert island.
That would be a waste of a selection spot!
So, without much further ado, I’m going to share my list. But let me remind you that this is my list of songs I like. You don’t have to like them. After all, you can create your own list! And, I AM allowed to change my mind if I do the same exercise in the future.
That’s the great thing about sharing things you enjoy. You don’t have to defend your choices other than to say - “I like these.” And you can always change your mind!
The Great Unveiling!
Wow. Do you think I’ve overblown this whole thing a bit? Well, why not? It’s fun!
I’m going to start with a song by a long-time favorite band, the Choir. And the main reason I am starting with them is the fact that it simply wasn’t an easy choice. I could almost make my Desert Island Playlist entirely from music they have produced over the years.
I’m going to pick Restore My Soul, which is the final tune on the album titled Circle Slide. If I were doing a Desert Island Albums list, Circle Slide would be on it.
Every time I listen to this song, I can focus on a different part of it and enjoy it anew. Sometimes it’s the lyrics. Sometimes it’s the percussion. Sometimes it’s an interesting “fill” that grabs my interest. I really like how the Choir mixes their music so a person can isolate its components OR just listen to the song as a whole.
In short, it’s pretty good when a tune you’ve listened to for years can still make you stop and pay attention just because you really want to.
The second tune I selected is one that I must admit I didn’t immediately take a shine to. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. I suspect it was more that I was distracted by some other styles of music at the time I was introduced to it. But over the years, I have found that I keep adding it to most new playlists and my appreciation continues to grow.
When I hear the beginning of the song as it fades in, I recognize it as an old friend who has a story to tell that I will enjoy hearing. And that holds true even though I’ve heard it a hundred times before.
So, here it is! Song number two is Give Me Strength by Over the Rhine. The album, Films for Radio, came out in 2001, but we did not add it to our own collection of music until some time later. We went through a bit of a new music drought around the turn of the century where we didn’t add much new music. I suspect this album came in a surge of music that was a bit of an overcorrection for the prior drought. As a result, it took some time to wade through all of the new material.
Or maybe I needed to see some more things in life before I could fully appreciate this tune. The reasons don’t matter, because it’s on the list.
The next one actually surprised me a little bit as I considered candidate artists. Yes, you caught me. I actually started by considering artists I wanted included in the list and then figuring out which piece called out to me the most. There are a few songs that I already knew would be here like Restore My Soul, This is the Way Love Is (later), and Give Me Strength. But, there were also a couple of artists where I wasn’t sure which one to choose without some consideration.
Sam Phillips provides me with the opportunity to add a different song-style and vocal to the list. After all, if I’m limited to eleven songs on a desert island, I might like to break things up a little bit.
I selected Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us on the album Don’t Do Anything because it is a very good tune that has a bit more of a stripped back feel. Robert Plant and Alison Krause originally recorded this (though it was written by Sam). But, I like Sam’s version a bit better.
The other selling point is the historical link to Sister Rosetta Tharp. It was the 1930s and 1940s when she first started fusing gospel, jazz, blues and rock n roll in her music. A pioneering black artist, she was a guitarist - introducing the electric guitar into her work. Here’s a video, probably from the 1960s, of Sister Rosetta playing Up Above My Head.
I admit that I have a tendency to select favorite songs that are not from a list of the most popular of all time - depending on your musical preferences, of course. But, I’m going to make one exception.
Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is incredibly well known. So well known that whole audiences happily participate in sing-alongs with minimal prompting. For example, the large stadium audience before this Green Day concert was able to stay with the musical backing track. And it doesn’t seem to matter if the audience is older or younger. Nor does the featured artist seem to matter, as is evidenced by this Harry Styles pre-concert rendition by that crowd.
I have additional reasons for including Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a favorite tune of my high school friend, Jeff, who left this world too soon. Hey! I don’t think it’s a bad thing if I include an excellent piece of music and some nostalgia comes along for the ride too.
It also doesn’t hurt that our farm crews have a history of responding to this piece of music as well!
The fifth tune on my list will be the last I share for this blog entry. I’ll continue with the list next Saturday. You can call this a teaser or you can consider it an effort to recognize that you might have other things to do today and you’re ready to move on.
I think it’s time to go with a straight-up rock / dance tune.
The Seventy-Sevens (or 77s) are another long-time favorite of mine and there are many of their songs I would happily include on this type of list. However, there really was no debate in my mind about which one I would select here. I liked This is the Way Love Is from the first time I heard it and I still get positive energy when I hear it today.
The Sticks and Stones album was a bit of a personal triumph for me, if you will. You see, it came out the year Tammy and I swapped vows and became life partners. And, as you might expect, there was a bit of adaptation by both of us to accommodate each other’s likes and dislikes - including the music we listened to.
Tammy was not particularly fond of some of the “rockier” groups I often favored and the Sevens were not on her playlist. I usually had to ask if it was okay to put their music on if we were both going to hear it. At least she would entertain the possibility of listening to this group. Other groups, like Lifesavers Underground (LSU), were usually a hard “no.”
When Sticks and Stones arrived in the mail, we were scheduled for a driving trip. Tammy was kind and allowed that we could do a first listen in the car on our way to the destination. And it did not take very long before she had to admit that Sticks and Stones was…. pretty good. Then, she suggested we could listen to it on the way BACK too.
Victory!
I suspect Nowhere Else would be Tammy’s choice in this spot. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be unhappy with that one either. But for today, I’ll stick with This is the Way Love Is.
Thank you for joining me as I explore my Desert Island Playlist. I hope you found a song on this list that was at least tolerable to your ears. And who knows? Maybe you found one that you enjoyed!
If you didn’t found anything you liked, that’s okay too. Go put on one of your favorites. Or go outside and listen to the birds sing, the leaves rustle, and the wind speak.
Or maybe, just maybe, you might also enjoy creating your own Desert Island Playlist? The whole point is to have a little fun while you appreciate things you like. While you’re at it, leave a comment and suggest one artist’s performance of a favorite song with me. You don’t need to find a video link, the artist name and song title will be enough. If I get enough suggestions, I’ll share a few of them in a future post!
Have a good day everyone!
Nice list! Thank you for embedding the links to the music so we can actually listen to it.