Desert island discs

Well, Desert Island Discs has finally become properly interactive for the regular man: a site has been set up that allows us public to list the eight tracks we were take with us to a desert island. This has had me thinking all night, to the determent of anything else I was meant to do.

I am still a bit fuzzy with the show, but I wonder: is this a forced exile or self-imposed? Because if it is the former, as in I was shipwrecked there, then I would want much more upbeat songs. Am I alone or with another person, cos this affects my choices too. I kinda assumed I would be by myself. The thing is, I don't like thinking about this very much. Holaminit - I'm off on an island, all by myself, possibly shipwrecked? What will I eat? How will I protect myself? Where will I sleep? Is there clean water? This whole endeavour is fraught with peril and the songs are kinda on the back burner. What will I eat?!

Anyway, I started off with a long list and that's been drawn down cos it contained songs by the same artist or the same genre or theme. The long list included three REM songs, which lost Losing my religion (for many years, my fave REM song and my go-to karaoke song) and Shiny happy people in the short list. There were three hip-hop love songs, with Killing me softly by the Fugees getting dropped. And two songs that heavily feature samples, but the one that got the ax was My 1st song by DJ Dangermouse (it's a mash-up of a song of the same name by Jay-Z and music by the Beatles - it's from the Dangermouse's Grey Album and my new fave cheer me up song). My two No Doubt choices (Don't speak and Spiderwebs) both didn't make it. Obviously I had to choose between my favoured artists: Otis, Ella, Aretha and Smokey (none made it from either one of them- sorry huns!), Jimi, the aforementioned REM, Nirvana.

I kinda made my criteria to be songs that I don't pressed fast forward when the come on the MP3 player. Here's the short list that I'm still whittling down (I've mentioned some of these songs in a previous post of this nature):

• How do you want it? - 2Pac (a wretched, wretched song with absolutely zero value and I would have been better off choosing I ain't mad at cha, but there's something about it that always makes me feel better when I hear it - wrong but true)
  
• SpottiOttiDopalicious - OutKast (it's just real: real OutKast, real Georgia, real life)
  
• Some thing's gotta give - Ella Fitzgerald
  
• Don't you forget about me - Simple Minds
  
• Don't look back in anger - Oasis (I like Wonderwall to sing, but there's something about the lyrics 'Stand up beside the fireplace/take that look from off your face' and the machinations that Noel undertook just to wrench the singing of the song from Liam reminds me of every interaction with my family when I was a kid)
  
• Can you see me - Jimi Hendrix
  
• Nightswimming - REM
  
• Smells like teen spirit - Nirvana (iconic and multitudinous)
  
• Cigarettes and coffee - Otis Redding
  
• Shadowboxer - Fiona Apple
  
• I'll be there for you/You're all that I need - Method Man and Mary J Blige
  
• You got me - The Roots and Erykah Badu
  
• Set adrift on memory bliss - PM Dawn (I just love the sampling of Spandau Ballet's True - a song I already like anyway)

This is when I'll really need your help so it will be the least likely time I'll hear from anyone!

Ugh. I've had a good look back at all the songs and they are all pants. Rubbish, rubbish pants. During the night, I decided to cut out two from the short list as well. Oooo, I hate shit like this, so rather good I've not been banished to a desert island then.