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Tuesday 10 April 2012

Tracks of my life

This Friday I am going on local radio. Like most people whenever I hear my voice played back to me I go in to shock and wonder how anyone ever manages to have a conversation with me as I sound like a droning, high pitched, sqwarky lunatic. A bit like Mr Punch but more annoying. I also hate public speaking of any kind so this should go really well. My last and only experience of radio was on a training course where we had to pretend to work in a radio station, I got to read the travel news. I instantly forgot the names of any roads so all accidents and hold ups happened on the M25. Played back it sounded like Mr Punch had had a stroke and could only communicate by squarking 'M25, bad' repeatedly.

However, I am also going to inflict upon the listeners sixteen of my favourite songs so they may loathe me for reasons other than my voice. I am recording 'Tracks of my life'. Where I chose 16 songs and talk about their role in my life. At first I thought this would be an easy task. Then I started going through i-tunes and trying to select tracks. Also trying to select tracks that actually have a role in my life rather than 'I like it'. Now there are songs that I adore but which are not the greatest songs in the world. I generally like them for one line. For example 'Wicheta Lineman'. I don't like the first couple of verses, all the rabid exposition 'I am a lineman for the county' etc. But I do love, deeply the line 'And I need you more than I want you, and I want you for all time.' The question is - can I inflict three minutes of rubbish on people for the beauty of that one line? The answer is, I may have to as a lot of the songs I really love have gratuitous swearing in them and I can't play that on the radio.
Certain songs are easy. Waltz no 2 by Elliot Smith. One of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard and stands up to repeated listenings. Other songs - great memories - crap songs. Should I include 'I don't know much' by Linda Rondstat and Arran Neville simply because my brother and I found it funny to sing it like Kermit the Frog?
I have put a long short list together. Plan is to revue it nearer the time and whittle it down. See how long my nerve holds out and whether I can bring myself to put 'My Brother' by Terry Scott out there.