music list

Apart from the fact that the writing at dooce.com is hilarious, other kicks I got from reading her site include the fact that at one point directly under her link to me she linked to “Sexual Healing” and “Pay-per-view consumption of porn in Provo”.

I’m too late to take part formally in her cruel exercise (If you were fleeing nuclear holocaust/a second term with G.W. Bush and could only take one mix tape with 12 songs on it and one book, which 12 songs and which book would they be?), but couldn’t resist giving it a try, belatedly.

But before I do: the problem I have with lists of this sort is never deciding how seriously I should take the criteria – if I were truly fleeing nuclear holocaust, I might just balk at taking Soundgarden’s Blow Up The Outside World along even if I absolutely loved it. This is a subset of a more general species of consideration – should the music reflect my probable need for spirit-boosting and optimism when in the process of fleeing nuclear holocaust or more George? Because a great deal of the music I love isn’t particularly happy-clappy, and who knows what effects it could have on my fragile sanity in such circumstances. Also, assuming these 12 songs are all I’m going to have to listen to, surely I’ll need variety rather than just my 12 favourite songs, so even though it sorely pains me to have only one Sonic Youth song in there, it’ll have to be that way for balance.

And after that long preliminary ramble, my 12 songs, list prone to frequent and irrational change, are:

‘Cross The Breeze (Sonic Youth)
AT&T (Pavement)
Manta Ray (Pixies)
Marine Machines (Amon Tobin)
Black Steel (Tricky)
Get Ur Freak On (Missy Elliot)
A Question Of Lust (Depeche Mode)
Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill)
Wednesday Morning 3 AM (Simon and Garfunkel)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me (sung by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong)
Brahms’ 2nd symphony (just the 1st movement if I’m not allowed the whole thing)
One Day More (Les Miserables)

And my one book probably has to be Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, although I choose this sulkily because of all the others I have to leave behind.