Desert Island Discs #3 – Mr Battman
Childhood: Cockney Rebel – “Tumbling Down”
My Dad has always influenced my taste in music, even from a very early age. This therefore makes this “childhood” section very difficult to pick as I have numerous fond memories of mix tapes being played in the car (we are talking around 10 years before an iPod was released) and various CDs around the house. I thought about the first single and album I bought (Eifel 65’s “Blue” and The Party Album by the Vengaboys) and I thought about the first gig I went to (Bob Dylan wins me back some street cred here). Eventually it came down to a toss-up between two songs which I can remember doing daft things to from a very young age. Firstly, there was America from the original recording of West Side Story which my sister and I used to run around a tortoise footstall when it was played… this same footstall even got brought out on my 18th! However, my final selection was Tumbling Down by Cockney Rebel. I can remember vividly jumping up and down on my parent’s bed to this belting out “Oh dear, look what they’ve done to the blues!” on more than one occasion and on a desert island I wouldn’t want to tire myself out running around a tortoise constantly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sj0BZeR7Io
School: Artic Monkeys – “Scummy” (“When The Sun Goes Down”)
As you can probably work out from my first single and album above, new music was pretty poor in the late 90s and early 00s; I was just too late to really catch Britpop in its peak. However, this all changed in 2004 when a demo CD entitled “Beneath the Boardwalk” was uploaded to MySpace. This CD was copied and passed around my school over and over again, as I am sure it was up and down the country, and gave rise to the Arctic Monkeys. It formed the basis of their debut album “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” but contained some tracks that have never seen an album (“Choo Choo” being one that sticks in my mind). I have chosen “Scummy” from the demo CD, but you might recognise it as “When The Sun Goes Down”; it had a name change before it came out on the actual album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKc2eIRkaI8
University: Starship – “We Built This City”
Perhaps after becoming a mad Arctic Monkeys fan it was only right I ended up in Sheffield at university. Whilst I was there, I shared numerous houses with other members of the hockey club. In a couple of the latter ones, I could again look to choose the Artic Monkeys as their fourth album, “Suck It and See” had come out by then and we were all massive fans (it is still my favourite of their albums). I have, however, opted for a song I used to get woken up to by another housemate every game day (Wednesday and Saturday at uni), Starship’s “We Built This City”. He would blare this out from his room through the entire house which initially drove me crazy, but as time went by I couldn’t get ready for a game until I had heard that opening line. Not the greatest song in the world, but one that will always say university hockey to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1b8AhIsSYQ
Teaching: Songhoys Blues – “Soubour”
I used to think my music taste was fairly left field, but then I met Mr Rosser at RHS. While we do not always agree on what is good, it is nice to know someone else out there likes to sit down and listen to Tom Waits. I have picked a band that he introduced me to called Songhoy Blues for my final track and their song “Soubour”. I saw these at Latitude, amongst other bands from Mr Rosser’s recommended list, but it was this lot who really stuck with me even though I don’t really know what they are singing about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r42A67TqBu0
CWD – Y11
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