11.11.2008

if you could only take one

the rain was coming down hard today as i waited in the parking lot outside marko's work. i have only listened to the radio a handful of times in the last five years, having gone full speed ahead with modern technology. it is shameful, i know. the closest i have gotten is subscribing to several cbc playlists. i almost never remember to actually listen to them though, they sit in my itunes for months and months before i get around to deleting them. having a car has changed all that. we do have a six cd changer and a tape adapter for the ipod, but i usually just put on the radio. maybe it is my attempt to stay current with the times, or simply an act of laziness, either way it didn't take long to realize that the radio is fairly awful (exception being the cbc, but often it doesn't do it for me while driving). so today i am sitting there listening to some song i have heard fifteen times in the last week, feeling slightly agitated, and i finally decide "enough!" and put on a disc. it was james taylor.

i don't know what it is about this guy, but he has it in spades. somehow just the sound of his voice takes me to a happier, peaceful place where livin' is easy.i imagine this is what it is like for a baby to put a pacifier in it's mouth. listening to carolina in my mind today i thought of this post over at the cheeseblog. it would seem that in these troubling times as a parent that perhaps music is the thing that takes us back from the edge. i am not going to say he is my favourite, i am not sure anyone is, favourite being the jargon of the young, but i am fond of him, and were i told that i could only have one disc with me on the stranded island, his might be it. i don't even have any particularly pleasant memory that involves him, i suspect it wasn't, and still isn't, cool to admit to liking him. i'd bring him anyway, cause i know that after a few weeks the desertedness of the deserted island would start to wear out it's welcome, the stress would kick in, and i would need sweet baby james to wash over me like a blanket of calm. too much? probably.

so tell me who you would bring if you could only bring one. or tell me why i am wrong and i would ultimately wish i had acdc's back in black with me.

5 comments:

A. Nonya Mouse said...

Les Baxter. Some good exotica instrumentals would probably suit the location... :-) I might appreciate the lack of lyrics, if I had to listen to it over and over and over forever.

Phototally said...

I've thought in the past that maybe it would be Radiohead's 'The Bends', because of the operatic misery that might be a welcome accompaniment to the solitude.

I'm not so sure any more.

I was just gifted a Peruvian house music cd and it might be ok to just dance til the end of ... desertion...as well as having the time to sort out the Spanish lyrics.

libragal said...

one and only one!?! Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos. Well, I'd be happy with any Tori really but SW remains my number one.
or maybe Edith Piaf - it's a good brain teaser, trying to figure out all of those french lyrics phonetically.

Anonymous said...

Can't. Do. It.

OK. If I was HAPPY to be deserted on an island (like today) I would choose Discosis by Bran Van 3000.

If I was sort of melancholy about it, I would choose Come on Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens.

I am also struck that the album I can listen to again and again is the Buena Vista Social Club. I might choose that and rely on memory for the rest.

I don't know that anyone would want ACDC for long. I find that one ACDC song sprinkled amongst about 30 others is a pretty good mix.

laish said...

What do you mean it isn't cool to admit to liking him?! Oh, I guess I'm not arbiter of cool! I like to change it to Rockabye Sweet Baby Jones for our Jones. I love me some JT, not timberlake (also addictive, but not desert island material), & I can even look past the coke fiend, Carly Simon abusing phase - adds more depth?

As for your question, it's too hard, I can't answer yet...