What is your desert island CD or album?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
If stuck on a desert island with an infinite supply of batteries and only one CD, I will select Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones.
Aren’t you forgetting something? Like what you would put those batteries in to play the CD?
okay, and a CD player. Jeez.
didn’t want you to be stuck with all those batteries and nothing to put them in while you wished you were listening to the stones
and a Wifi connection? Come to think of it, then I could have all the music I wanted, just like I do now. heh
I was considering the Stones, but I think I’d have to go with Ziggy Stardust.
Excellent choice. One of my favorites.
Not a bad pick:
And what could be more comforting than Bowie singing “Oh, no love you’re not alone?”
I don’t know. If I was on an island with one song it would have to be Layla. That song always gets me up and moving. Not much, but moving.
Then you’d not only get Layla, but some other classics lke Bell Bottom Blues as well as forgotten gems like I Looked Aeay.
As they say, you could do worse.
does anyone here know who did the keyboards (piano) during the instrumental riff at the end of “Layla”? The spouse and I freakin’ love that instrumental part — almost as good as “Glad” by Traffic, with Steve Winwood on keyboards…
According to this page on reference.com, the keyboardist for Derek and the Dominoes was Bobby Whitlock, but it was actually drummer Jim Gordon who laid down the piano track. And yes, a great piano track it is, too.
I love Bell Bottom Blues, but I have to say my next favorite song would be Why Does Love Have to Hurt so Bad. His guitar work on that excellent.
It’d be hard to go wrong. I was thinking in terms of something like the Beatles’ One, but I think Derek and the Dominoes would probably even beat that out.
Especially if you prefer Clapton to the Beatles. heh
One song would be torture (of course, so would one CD)! I’d probably go with Add It Up by the Violent Femmes.
Well that Album is one of the strongest picks, IMO.
Album??!! You really do think we are a bunch of old farts don’t you?
How ’bout which 8 track you’d take? The only one I remember having was Heat Wave “Too Hot to Handle.” Doesn’t sound like it would work well on a desert island.
As for CD’s – today I’d say Carlos Santana “Supernatural.” Ask tomorrow – and it would be something else.
Funny, for some reason I thought you’d pick The Beatles…
I will take that as a comment on my sig line, and not that your think I’m a really old fart too.
It was definitely in reference to the sig line! I didn’t even really consider the age factor. I wouldn’t mind if my one CD was Sinatra, and I wasn’t even born when he recorded most of his stuff.
Mine would be a toss up between Texas Flood or Couldn’t Stand The Weather by Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Little bit of everything in there, but if I had to choose it would be Texas Flood for the sweet, mellow, singing guitar in the song Lenny.
I cannot believe I did this! I actually let my cell run completely down w/o recharging it! (I don’t have a land line.) Wanted to set the alarm–cooking dinner now, and the damn thing wouldn’t work! Finally found the cord to charge it and I missed only 3 messages–All from bill collectors. Oh well, nothing is disconnected, so I’m ok. And dinner is cooking!!!!!!!!
I’d be hard put to choose a single CD to be married to for the rest of my life. I like variety in my musical lineup too much.
But if I’m in exile on a desert island, I’m probably going to die anyway because I won’t have access to the medicine that is keeping my metabolism on a relatively even keel, or I’ll break my glasses and get eaten by something I disagreed with, so maybe I won’t have to worry about it for too long. In that case I might just settle back with a supply of something tasty to drink and a comfortable place to sit, and watch the sun go down to the strains of Verve’s Compact Jazz: The Best Of Bossa Nova. I could do worse than listening to Stan Gets and João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim crooning in Portuguese and pretending I’m on the beach in Rio, having more fun than I really am.
now that is definintely the spirit, Omir…
Currently I use that Best Of Bossa Nova CD as a muscle relaxer. I put it on and settle back and that soft music in a language I don’t understand more than a half dozen words of puts me right to sleep. My wife and I joke that we don’t think we’ve ever heard track 15, and we’re not even sure there is one, because I’m generally asleep by the time Gentle Rain (track 10) comes around.
Not 100% true, but not that far away from it.
If I was on a desert island
by myself
forever
with an infinite supply of batteries.
A CD player and CD would NOT be my first choice of appliance.
So, you’re telling you’d be going with Shake, Rattle, and Roll by Bill Haley & The Comets. Now, that’s old school.
ROFLMAO!! Good thing your deserted island is not likely to be part of the state of Pennsylvania. Isn’t that the state where they are consdiering banning the particular device you’re thinking about?
Let’s not give Rick “Man On Dog” Santorum any more ideas…
When she said “appliance” the first thing that popped into my head was, “Don’t be silly, you can’t run a washing machine on batteries.”
Ah, the curse of a clean mind.
will be playing loud on that desert isle.
Love to feel those heights of pleasure with Dr. Feelgood:
I don’t want nobody, always
Sittin’ around me and my man
I don’t want nobody, always
Sittin’ around there
Lookin’ at me and that man
Be it my mother, my brother, my sister
Would you believe, I get up
Put on some clothes
Go out and help me find somebody for this self,
if I can’
Now I don’t mind company
Because company’s alright with me
Every once in awhile
Yes it is,
Now I don’t mind company
Because company is alright with me
Every once in awhile, yeah
And Ooooooooooooooh
When me an that man get to lovin’
I tell ya girl, I dig ya, but I don’t have time
To sit, and chit, and sit and chit-chat an smile
Don’t send me no doctor
Fill me up with all a those pills
I got me a man named Doctor Feelgood
Yeah! Yeah!
That man takes care of all my pains and ills
His name is Doctor Feelgood in the morning
To take care of business is really this man’s game
And after one visit to Dr. Feelgood,
You understand why I feel good, in this pain.
Oh! Yeah! Oooh!
Oh, good God a-mighty
The man sure makes me feel real……..
Goooooooood!
And also, Til You Come Back to Me
Though you don’t call any more
I sit and wait in vain
I guess I’ll rap on your door (your door)
Tap on your window pane (tap on your window pane)
I wanna tell ya baby changes I’ve been goin’ through
Missin’ you – listen you
(Till you come back to me – that’s what I’m gonna do)
Why did you have to decide
You had to set me free
I’m gonna swallow my pride (my pride)
Gonna beg ya to please – baby please see me
(Baby won’t you see me)
I’m gonna walk out by myself
Just to prove that my love is true
Oh for ya baby
(Till you come back to me
That’s what I’m gonna do)
…by that time, sonar would have delivered her up to a few aircraft carriers in the vicinity. I wouldn’t be on the isle for too damn long.
Yeah, right, I’m supposed to choose between Springsteen, Seger, The Beatles, and Motown???
I don’t think so!
BooMan didn’t say it had to be an off-the-shelf music CD, now did he? If you’re being exiled I guess the least they can do for you is let you cut a CD with 15 or 20 tracks you chose yourself.
If I was being exiled, I would want more than CD’s.
but BooMan already said we only got one CD, and I was playing by the rules. Otherwise like I said above I would just bring my solar-powered laptop, hook it up to a satellite wi-fi connection and get all the music I wanted.
Good point. But, realistically, computers should have been a given. That and coffee and a coffee-maker!
Well, if you’re going to have coffee you need donuts, and if you have donuts you can just have the donut delivery man bring you your packages from CD Universe.
Hm, exile is sounding less onerous all the time.
Depends on how hot the donut delivery man is!
I usually create my own mix. I like Supersolings choice with Stevie Ray. I think Little Wing accoustic is terrific. But here`s one of a set of 4 I mixed. I don`t think only one artist can take care of my moods.
http://img73.imageshack.us/my.php?image=name33dscn05469vq.jpg
What’s the difference between John Bolton and a catfish? One is a stinking bottom-feeder with whiskers, and the other is a fish.
Just a suggestion, freely offered and wotth pretty much what you paid for it.
Here`s a free one back.
An old man in church tells his wife. “Hey Doris, I just squeezed out a silent but stinky one. What should I do?”
“Put some fresh batteries in your hearing aid”.
Good edit on my sig line, but I wouldn`t know how to amend it.
hahahaha, I like that one.
it’s got to be Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7; not picky as to who performs it (as long as they don’t play the second movement too damn fast, or it’s not Zamfir on the pan pipes).
If I could sneak a few more, I’d add in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, and try to squeeze in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, especially the second movement (just discovered it and have fallen in lust…).
I forget who it was who mentioned last year that the BBC was offering free downloads of Beethoven’s complete symphonies, performed by the BBC Philharmonic…I am eternally in that person’s debt… 🙂
von karajan and the berliner philharmonic’s deustchegrammephone recording of beethoven’s ninth, which i once was able to identify out loud correctly when listening at random to the classical music station here in la.
did an excellent interpretation of Bruckner’s 7th, as well.
Bruckner is an acquired taste for most people — I acquired it in college when I dated a French horn player who was a Bruckner fanatic. 🙂
I would get a recording of Dvorak’s Ninth, “From The New World.” Very accessible, very “hummable” and it would remind me of happier times. I used to have a casette of it done by the Czech Philharmonic that I would play as I walked to work at 5:30 in the morning many years ago.
Loreena McKennit — Book of Secrets
I listen to a bunch of different things, including a huge assortment of Andean folk and fusion, but this is one CD that I never seem to NOT want to hear.
The backup would be either her Parallel Dreams or Sarah MacLachlan’s “Fumbling towards Ecstasy.”
ok, let’s put aside the question of how the hell do you have electricity to play a cd on a desert island, and, if you do, why aren’t you building a radio out of coconuts like the professor on gilligan’s island, instead of listening to cd’s all goddam day.
the answer to your question is, here’s my five favorite albums of all time:
although i also like the cars first album, the b-52’s second album, and some girls. and the second side of abbey road.
but albums, as a concept, is so 20th century. if you’ve got electricy on that desert island why aren’t you just downloading all your individual songs?
are you sure?
“dead man” soundtrack.
give it a listen
not sure i could do the desert island thing without a dvd player, but if i had to, i’d take Mozart’s Don Giovanni (maybe with the cast and orchestra) – it’s got everything in it.
If it was only ONE album, it would have to be American Beauty by the Grateful Dead.
American Beauty is great, as is Working Man’s Dead, but I think I’d go with Europe 72 – more songs. Actually, I’d like a complete collection including all the Dick’s Picks and the Jerry Garcia Band albums. Senor on the JGB double album still sends shivers up my spine.
Frankly, I’d rather have none than one — but if it’s gotta be one, make it Miles’ Kind of Blue.
Marooned eh?
I’d have to say I’d rather have my favorite acoustic guitar and an adequate supply of new strings. One cd, no matter what it might be, would be akin to torture. It’d be a frisbee in very short order.
At least I’d have plenty of time to play.
Peace
Maybe I’d just take my banjo along and give it the time it deserves, along with a couple of good instruction books and a supply of sheet music (since I’m limited to one CD and therefore can’t learn the music I want by listening to it, unless it’s all on that CD).
By the time I finally died I’d be playin’ like Uncle Dave Macon and Earl Scruggs all rolled into one, and no one would ever have heard me but me. Kinda sad, actually.
by Nadja Salerno-Sonenberg. She is music embodied in a living flame that somehow transmutes from an aural to visual image when I listen to her playing.
Or
Meet Me in Margaritaville
check out my diary, Promoting Democracy: Whither Mainstream America?
It has quite a bit to do with BooMan’s front page post, “Bush’s New PR Campaign” and how Democrats and Progressives can turn this Administration’s Quagmire du jour into an advantage in ’06 and ’08.
Tough question, I get sick of CD’s fairly easily.
I think I’d go with: Built to Spill – Keep it like a Secret. That album rawks.
But I’m building a false bottom in my lifeboat right now, cause I ain’t going without some Zeppelin and some Clapton and some Hendrix. And Hotel California and Desperado.
Darkness…
Hey there!!
Nothing better ever recorded.