New York
I recently received this question: Have you ever heard of the BBC radio program called Desert Island Discs? They get famous people on and ask them what their essential CD would be if they were ever marooned on a desert island. Then they play the music. It’s a great show. Not to carry the metaphor
too far, but being at sea for months on end does qualify as, at least a comparable circumstance. So what’s on your MP3 that will get you through that length of time?
I think I answered a similar question while I was on the Atlantic, but that was a while ago now, so time for a revisit. Here is a list I put together for a radio interview here in the US a little while ago:
1. The Logical Song (Supertramp) – youthful dreams, and how easy it is to lose sight of them as “maturity” and cynicism set in
2. Sleeping Satellite (Tasmin Archer) – environmental awareness
3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pink Floyd) – “you reached for the secret too soon, you tried for the moon” – memories of difficult early days on Atlantic, wondering if I had underestimated the scale of the challenge, or overestimated my ability to cope with it.
4. Bring Me To Life (Evanescence) – chose this for my video of being battered by storms. “Save me from the nothing I’ve become” – feelings of insignificance in the face of hostile natural elements
5. Stuck In A Moment (U2) – becalmed at sea – almost as bad as storms – frustration
6. Space Oddity (David Bowie) – “for here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world, Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do” – memories of isolation after my satellite phone broke, severing all communication with shore
7. Glorious (Andreas Johnson) – glorious feeling of arrival in Antigua
8. La Vida Loca (Ricky Martin) – just because it’s fun! And life shouldn’t be taken too seriously.