69:20

I’m typ­i­cal­ly not very excit­ed when I am giv­en a hypo­thet­i­cal ques­tion along the lines of ‘If you were on a desert island what five things would you want with you?’ My answer is always some­thing along the lines of ‘A Coast Guard ‘copter, fuel for it, a book on how to fly a ‘copter, enough food and water for two months, and Elsa Ben­itez.’

So the hypo­thet­i­cal you are about to read about, one that I assigned myself, is a bit unnat­ur­al. It does come as the result of some very deep pon­der­ing that I have been engaged in late­ly in regard to a list I am mak­ing of my all-time favorite songs.

Here is how it goes. You have been con­vict­ed by a police state for a crime that does­n’t mat­ter since you did­nt com­mit it. Before they strand you on a desert island with­out a Coast Guard heli­copter, a strange quirk in the legal sys­tem forces you into the fol­low­ing sit­u­a­tion: You have at your dis­pos­al a dig­i­tal library of all music and the means to burn it onto a CD. You only have one CD. You must fill it with your favorite songs, in a for­mat that can be played on the orig­i­nal Sony Dis­c­man that is in a bag next to your lone CD‑R. [That means you can’t stuff the CD with mp3s, bozo]. You can­not have more than one song by an artist, or else you will be flayed by super­in­tel­li­gent mar­mosets and then dipped in salt. What songs do you put on the CD?

Here is what I would put on.

Plush [Acoustic] — Stone Tem­ple Pilots — 3:54
Down to the Water­line — Dire Straits — 3:56
Tin Pan Alley [AKA The Rough­est Place in Town] — Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an — 9:08
Dan­ger­ous Mood — Joe Cock­er and B.B. King — 4:54
Fool in the Rain — Led Zep­pelin — 6:12
Zig­gy Star­dust — David Bowie — 3:13
Noth­ing Else Mat­ters [Acoustic] — Metal­li­ca — 6:23
For Martha — Smash­ing Pump­kins — 8:17
I Burn — Toad­ies — 3:31
The Soft Col­li­sion — Machines of Lov­ing Grace — 4:50
Spe­cial­ist — Inter­pol — 6:34
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? — Cree­dence Clear­wa­ter Revival — 2:39
Bohemi­an Rhap­sody — Queen — 5:59

Total Run Time — 69:20

13 thoughts on “69:20”

  1. Ok this is a dif­fi­cult one for me and I will prob­a­bly pick the more pop­u­lar songs from some artists because I’m crazy like that. Also please note I’m going with 12 songs, but I don’t think they’ll fit on to a stan­dard CD‑R (Sue me I don’t have my playlist handy).
    1.) Sanatar­i­um — Metal­li­ca
    2.) Count­down to Extinc­tion — Megadeth
    3.) 33 — Smash­ing Pump­kins
    4.) 4th move­ment of Lud­wig van Beethoven’s 9th Sypho­ny i.e. Ode to joy
    5.) Bohemi­an Rhap­sody — Queen
    6.) My own Prison (Acoustic)- Creed
    7.) While my Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps — Bea­t­les
    8.) Dream On — Aero­smith
    9.) Big Emp­ty — Stone Tem­ple Pilots
    10.) Humans Being — Van Halen
    11.) Hells Bells (live) — ACDC
    12.) Stair­way to Heav­en — Led Zep­pelin

  2. per­haps its been stew­ing around in my sub­con­scious since then. i bet yours did­n’t have super­in­tel­li­gent mar­mosets though.

  3. yeah for me that one offers too much vari­ety.

    Still here they are:

    The Smash­ing Pump­kins — Adore
    David Bowie — The Sin­gles
    Nine Inch Nails — The Down­ward Spi­ral
    The Shins — Oh, Invert­ed World
    Led Zep­pelin — In Through the Out Door.

  4. but its not as mel­low. my list need­ed some­thing mel­low. i sup­pose i could have left the shins off and put on coltrane instead.

  5. Exact­ly eighty min­utes of unal­loyed majesty:

    01 Leonard Cohen — Suzanne
    02 Miles Davis — Gener­ique
    03 The Shag­gs — My Pal Foot Foot
    04 The Vel­vet Under­ground — Sis­ter Ray
    05 Neu! — Neg­a­tiv­land
    06 The Micro­phones — Ice
    07 The Mag­net­ic Fields — Two Char­ac­ters in Search of a Coun­try Song
    08 The Carter Fam­i­ly — Can the Cir­cle Be Unbro­ken
    09 Joy Divi­sion — Decades
    10 Elgar — Cel­lo Con­cer­to, Op. 85: I Ada­gio (Jacque­line du Pre’s per­for­mance only)
    11 Sam Cooke — A Change is Gonna Come
    12 Neil Young — Down By The Riv­er
    13 The Mod­ern Lovers — I’m Straight
    14 Gang of Four — At Home He’s A Tourist

    PS I’d go with Adri­ana Lima over Elsa Ben­itez any day of the week.

  6. I did some­thing sim­i­lar May 17th, 2003.

    “I Just Want­ed You To Know” — Mark Chest­nut
    “X‑Static” — Foo Fight­ers
    “Mr. Tam­bourine Man” — Bob Dylan
    “Mov­ing On” — Six­pence None The Rich­er
    “Muz­zle” — Smash­ing Pump­kins
    “Adia” — Sarah McLach­lan
    “Fallin’ Again” — Alaba­ma
    “Shoul­da Been A Cow­boy” — Toby Kei­th
    “Fish­ing In The Dark” — Nit­ty Grit­ty Dirt Band
    Open­ing Theme of Angel — Dar­ling Vio­let­ta

  7. I’ve also heard the whole 5 album ver­sion as well;
    1.) Metal­li­ca — …and Jus­tice for All
    2.) Smash­ing Pumkins — Mel­lon Col­lie and the Infi­nite Sad­ness
    3.) Led Zep­pelin — IV
    4.) ACDC — Live
    5.) Megadeth — Cout­down to Extinc­tion.

  8. Hah, the best Coltrane is decid­ed­ly unmel­low, I’d argue. (Con­verse­ly, crit­ics in his day thought it sound­ed “angry.” He explained it was b/c he was try­ing so many things at once.) Your best bet there would be to stick with the king, the man who birthed cool in 1949: Mr Miles Davis. If you stray from Miles, at least avoid blue-eyed jazzmen, if you know what I mean.

  9. Well, that does­n’t address what I said: “the best Coltrane” was what I was talk­ing about. So: Love Supreme, Blue Train, and Giant Steps. Those are inar­guably his three mas­ter­pieces and inar­guably unmel­low. And any­one who con­tends oth­er­wise is inar­guably igno­rant of Coltrane’s music.

  10. Ah, see I would argue that the Album offers few­er choic­es whilst it gives more music. I even seen it with con­straints, no com­pi­la­tion CD’s (movie sound­track, great­est hits, etc), no dou­ble disk sets, no antholo­gies. I think it brings an extra bit of mer­it, because some albums have real­ly great songs, but it is a rare album that is real­ly good from beg­gin­ning to end, and be some­thing that you could list to for the rest of your nat­ur­al life.

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