~~ Stuck On an Island Top Ten Songs (S.O.I.T.T.S.) ~~

I decided to follow in the footsteps of the inestimable Adam Chose and post a couple songs at a time. The challenge was to come up with the ten songs that you'd most like to have on your iPod if you were crashed on a weird island ala' Lost. Here's a couple of my must-haves:


1) "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by The Talking Heads

From their 1983 Speaking In Tongues album. They had put out 2 great albums with Brian Eno playing a crucial role and delving into some afro-rhythms and really textured atmospheres (Fear of Music and Remain In Light - probably my fave all around Heads album), but they were a bit oh-so-serious and intellectual. This album, and esp. this excellent song, were a welcome breeze of fun and sunny(-esque) hope. It's the song that I would pick to be the Jonathan Theme Song...the one that plays whenever I walk down the street in the opening scene from some un-yet filmed movie of which I'm the star (this actually happens in my head pretty often). There is also a great version of this song on Stop Making Sense - the rockumentary that Jonathan Demme filmed in 1984 - that I'm including here for your pleasure.




2) "Birdland" by Patti Smith *

From her debut album, Horses, in 1975. This is/was undeniably punk - from the 'Godmother of Punk' - but not like anything that'd been heard before. Even now, we've heard P.J. Harvey or Liz Phair but, Patti had the poetry, the jazz, the coolness, and the Balls to yell:
"...He's gonna run through the fields dreaming in animation
It's all gonna split his skull
It's gonna come out like a black bouquet shining
Like a fist that's gonna shoot them up
Like light, like Mohammed Boxer
Take them up up up up up up
Oh, let's go up, up, take me up, I'll go up,
I'm going up, I'm going up
Take me up, I'm going up, I'll go up there
Go up go up go up go up up up up up up up
Up, up to the belly of a ship.
Let the ship slide open and we'll go inside of it
Where we are not human, we're not human..."

...and when you listen to this, very loud for heaven's sake, possibly while driving on a winding road through the forest, you may cry or yell or orgasm but you will definitely be taken up and if you can imagine hearing this in 1975 (the year Emily was born, the year of Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver, One of these Nights by the Eagles, and this incredible gem that you really have to watch at least up 'til the 1:00 mark...Muskrat Love) well, then you can imagine how startling it may have been. It Still is more intense than most music I know of and is almost more of an experience than a song.

* (this link is to a pretty good live version)



3) "The Sea" by Sandy Denny

Sandy Denny sang in Fairport Convention (with Richard Thompson singing and playing guitar) and Fotheringay in the late sixties and early seventies. She also was the only person to ever provide guest vocals on a Led Zeppelin album (on Battle of Evermore from Zep IV). Sandy D. has one of the greatest voices I know of...some may think her stuff sounds dated but I say No Way...just gorgeous. I also love how this song sounds like the sea...it's expansive, open and the instrumentation ebbs and flows and crashes with her voice just floating above it all. There are a couple songs of hers I could've picked - esp. "Autopsy" from Fairport Convention's Unhalfbricking but 'The Sea' is one of the most perfect folk-rock songs, nay - Songs, that I know.