List your six current favorite songs and then pick six people who have to do the same.
Always going to be a bit tricky. These are my six favourite songs as of lunchtime today. The list will have changed by the end of lunchtime.
- Johann Sebastian Bach, C-minor Fugue from Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV847). The Bach that I’m most likely to whistle in the shower, closely followed by Variation 10 from the Goldberg Variations and the D-major Prelude fom Book One.
- The Troubadours of King Baudouin, Sanctus from the Missa Luba. A glorious movement from a beautiful mass, made famous by its use in Lindsay Anderson’s If…. and finally available on CD. Make sure you listen to the recording by the Troubadours, since all the other recordings are inferior.
- The Specials, International Jet Set. A fine track from Coventry’s finest.
- Blowzabella, Death in a Fen -> Bruton Town -> Our Captain Cried from the album A Richer Dust. Bagpipes and the hurdy-gurdy are much-maligned instruments that have an important place in British folk music, and I can’t think of a single track that shows them off to such effect. Also chosen because Bruton Town is perhaps my favourite folk song, and one of which I have strong emotional memories.
- Billy Bragg, The Red Flag. A wonderful recording of this anthem set to its original tune, The White Cockade, rather than to the dirge-like Tannenbaum.
- Fats Waller and his Buddies, The Minor Drag. If I had to choose one jazz track, this would be it, an upbeat, exuberant instrumental recorded in the spring of 1929.
Passing the torch on to