One of the suggestions I had when I shared my last post was to write about my Desert Island Discs – the eight songs that I’d take with me to a desert island if I was ever cast away. So this is a different kind of post – one, maybe, about getting to know me, sharing a bit about me. One that doesn’t mention cancer or death! So, here goes.
It’s always something I’ve thought about but found so hard. How do you select just eight? Should they be your favourite songs, the best songs you think have ever been written, those that sum up your life, or take you back to particular memories?
Music feels like it’s been a huge part of my life. Songs can take me instantly to a moment, a person, a memory. I can tell you exactly where I was when music has been played. I use music as a distraction, a way to focus, a way to smile. And I bloody love a boogie!
It’s the same for David, and music and concerts have been a big part of our relationship. He’s always made playlists – for every trip we’ve been on, for special moments, when we have friends over. A modern version of the mix tape! The wedding playlists were a project – so important to us to get right, to make sure the music reflected us and our favourite things, although I’m not sure how much anyone noticed them! Our third date was to a gig and something we’ve tried to do as much as possible over the last 13 years. We have very different music tastes though so finding our overlap isn’t always easy! David makes up songs constantly (something I moan about!) and I hear Charlotte doing the same now, singing her way through the day. So music is a constant in our lives and possibly why I found this so tricky.
My desert island discs was another 3am project. Of course, I should have been sleeping but the mixture of scan-xiety and post chemo steroids has meant that it’s evaded me over the couple of weeks. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. There were some songs that were non-negotiable. That would make my list regardless of how I was deciding what to include. But in the middle of the night, I decided that the songs that sum up my life were the right ones for me. The soundtrack to my memories. They are not the best songs ever written (although there are some absolute belters!), but they are the songs that evoke memories. The songs that make me smile. The songs that mean a lot.
There are only eight though, so please don’t be offended. I couldn’t cover everything or everyone special to me.
It’s also been tricky since a lot of the music I like has been made by people who have been since been cancelled (or could be at any moment) or have done some horrendous things. Can I separate the art from the artist? Not sure.
Track 1 – Tell Her About It, Billy Joel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0pM5dm–yQ&feature=youtu.be
This is Dad. My childhood memories of him and us as a family, so tied up with Billy Joel. I could have chosen so many songs, particularly those from the ‘An Innocent Man’ album, but this ones sticks out. I defy anyone to listen to this and stay still! My lasting memory of this song, of Billy Joel, is a holiday to Carnac, in France. It was a big family holiday. My Grandparents on Mum’s side, their children and all their kids – 15 of us, all in one house together. Summer 1987. This was the soundtrack of the holiday. Dad trying so hard to impress my cousins, Charlie and Tom, trying to be one of the younger ones rather than one of the grown ups! I feel like it was played constantly and the lyrics are still engrained in my brain all these years later. This song is so intrinsically linked to my memories of Dad, having one without the other seems impossible and so no chance this wasn’t making my list.
This holiday was also the scene of the starfish funeral – Lucy and I devastated to find a dead star fish on the beach and forcing all 13 members of our family to attend a funeral for it in the front garden, much to the amusement of passers by!
We got to see Billy Joel live in July 2023 at Hyde Park. One of our first nights out after finishing my chemo, surgery and radiotherapy first time round. A really perfect summer day.
Track 2 – 1, 2, 3 ,4, Gloria Estefan and The Miami Sound Machine – https://youtu.be/T4IWlFutwXo
This is another song that evokes memories of my childhood. When we were young, holidays were in Llangrannog, Wales. A place we all loved, sharing incredibly happy times with extended family. As we grew a bit older (and maybe Mum and Dad managed a bit more money from his wheeling and dealing!) we added in holidays abroad – usually the South of France. The car was packed up and Luke and I put in the back and off we set. Hours of driving but all accompanied by a couple of tapes, often chosen together before the holiday in ‘Our Price’. Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine ‘Let It Loose’ was one of those tapes and this song, played over and over on those journeys.
Track 3 – Never Forget, Take That – https://youtu.be/yoO_1FFr56k?si=fdAYXEbCuN6hxbGy
This song is from my teenage years. Memories of Liz, Louise and I. We met at secondary School – Hemel Hempstead School. Louise and I, in the same form. Best friends from Year 7 and with Liz from Year 9. That’s 35 years of friendship. Although how that’s possible given we’re in our early 30s, I’m not sure!
Take That were in their heyday. We sat writing out song lyrics at break time, hours spent debating which one we fancied the most. And then, a few years later, we started going out. Getting in to bars and clubs when we were much too young (Charlotte, if you’re reading this, you’re not allowed. Just ‘cos I did it, doesn’t mean you can!). One of those was Jumpin’ Jaks in the newly built Jarman’s Leisure Park. I have no clue how we got in – we were dressed like we thought we should be for being an adult. Mostly in blazers. The thought makes me cringe now! We’d drink whatever was on offer, or arrive very merry having drunk anything we could get our hands on at home before we arrived (not my home, Dad would never have allowed me out!). This song was the end of the night and immediately involved climbing on the tables, singing our hearts out, doing the dance moves. Then we’d clamber in to a taxi and all head back to Louise or Liz’s house. Share a bed, wake up in the morning and head off to our weekend jobs at Littlewoods, WH Smiths and Next, getting ready to do it all again. It makes me smile just thinking of it now. Simple times.
The Take That obsession lived on and in 2009 Liz and I queued for hours to get to the front at Wembley for their Circus tour!
35 years later and the three of us are still best friends. We’ve been through a lot together in those years – the good and the bad. And now our little gang of three is going strong with 10 of us.
Track 4 – Girlfriend, N*Sync – https://youtu.be/saxnXiBKEaY?si=rCWOm9zc6A2CCzzW
Now we’re on to university years. I moved to Nottingham in 1998 to study Law with French at Nottingham Trent University. I moved in to halls in the city centre and found myself neighbours with Sarah, who was on the same course. We struck up a great friendship which I’ve been lucky enough to continue with her for over 25 years. We spent two years in Nottingham and then moved to Montpellier, in France, where we spent a year studying before head back to Nottingham for our final year. Sarah and I have very similar tastes in music. We cling on to 90s / 00s RnB and can still be found at 2am drunkenly dancing round the kitchen, rapping lyrics we don’t understand! I couldn’t have a list of songs without including a Justin Timberlake one and so this N*Sync song has made it to the final eight. It is the song of our final year and beyond. Sarah and I travelled thousands of miles across America together in 2010, this song on repeat. It’s the song that we still play whenever we get together, or when we hear it playing somewhere random will message each other. I’m not sure anyone else likes it as much as we do!
Track 5 – Saw Her Standing There, The Beatles – https://youtu.be/oxwAB3SECtc?si=u5Ktx9RZl_Mo6ANo
This is mine and David’s song. I have memories of us driving to Louise and Steve’s wedding in France, listening to it. Of us dancing in a bar in Key West, Florida to it, of us dancing on the beach to it on honeymoon. It was our first dance at our wedding in October 2015. I can’t remember why it ended up being our song, but it is. And I love it. It’s another one where I can stand still when it comes on.
I loved our wedding. It was exactly what we wanted. 60 friends and family, nearly everyone we love the most, all travelled to Tuscany to celebrate with us. It became a weekend, rather than a day. Family, bridesmaids and best man were all in the villa together, with other guests in the village down the road. We ate, we drank and we danced. Oh, and we got married in a 13th century abbey – Abbazia di San Galgano. Incredible. We had a ‘mini-moon’ on the way back through Positano and the Swiss Alps before our honeymoon to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpar and Langkawi in January 2016.
David was happy to have this as our first dance. It’s one of the shortest songs around! But it is a tricky one to do the usual first dance shuffle to. So we had two dance lessons in the lead up to the big day, finding a choreographer who gave us a routine that we could practise and attempt to pull off. After two lessons it became clear that neither of us were remotely talented and could barely remember the steps, and so we dumbed it down a bit and gave it a go. We told no one about it, so I think was a bit of a surprise when we started a full on routine on the dancefloor. David’s first words to me when we got in to the car after the wedding ceremony were not ones of romance, rather ‘how the hell are you going to do the dance in that dress?!’. We did though!
Track 6 – One Day Like This, Elbow – https://youtu.be/0NFV8dHrZYM?si=Zp0QatSpIHd6dSnD
This is another song that will always make me think of David, of us. I just think it’s a gorgeous song. The strings, perfect. It was the song that played as we got married, our Mums both signing the register as our witnesses. One day like that a year would definitely see us right. It’s still one I listen to often although the lyrics a little too poignant now.
We also saw Elbow live at Hampton Court Palace on a gorgeous summers evening, one of our first evenings out together after Charlotte was born, only just making it because she’d been poorly that week.
Track 7 – Hey Tiger, Robbie Williams – https://youtu.be/7uAWpUUbsOI?si=ANtLh9RPoPUA1JUj
I couldn’t make a list of my favourite songs and not include one that made me think of Charlotte. I suspect this is the entry on the list that could change over time but, for now, this is our song. Robbie Williams working his way in to my list twice!
Charlotte loves books. She always has done. The Tiger Who Came to Tea has been a favourite for a long time and the animated version also became regular viewing in our house. This song is from that animation.
We’re usually driving when we play this song and we both love to sing it (although I’m not always allowed and frequently get told to stop!). There’s a line about chocolate cake – our favourite! She makes me sing the ‘moosic’ (as she calls it) while she sings the lyrics. Pure joy.
Track 8 – Ex Factor- Lauryn Hill – https://youtu.be/cE-bnWqLqxE?si=Sn5lCE0eufCet5uI
With this song, I’ve broken my own rule a bit. This one doesn’t represent a particular point in my life, evoke particular memories. Instead it’s my favourite song. Released in 1998, it still takes my top spot. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill still one of my favourite and most played albums.
And so there we are. The songs that sum up my life. A thousand memories. Happy times, wonderful people, love and friendship.
Songs that were close to making the list and are worthy of an honourable mention:
- All of Me – John Legend
- Run the World (Girls) – Beyonce
- U Got It Bad – Usher
- All Night Long – Lionel Richie
- If I Had A Gun – Noel Gallagher
- Half The World Away – Oasis
- This Is How We Do It – Montell Jordan
- The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson
- Superstitious – Stevie Wonder
- Family Affair – Mary J Blige
- The Next Episode – Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg
- California Love – 2Pac
