Worth 40 minutes of your time, both as he’s quite interesting on Obama’s charisma and appeal and has great taste in music, together with some nice stories behind his choices. Suffice it to say Galaxie 500 returns a ‘diddywhack’ from their archive, not having featured before. He’s the current US Ambassdor to the UK so yes, he coasts through DID like a pro.
Desert Island Discs – Matthew Barzun
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Just caught the second half, which included Emmylou doing Dylan, and Belle & Sebastian. Great episode.
I also enjoyed the Marcus Mumford track (no, really) from the New Basement Tapes. Is the rest of the album this good?
No.
Thank fuck for that. Am skint.
When you listen to the podcast version of DID, you only get around 30 seconds of each track “due to right’s reasons”
You don’t get an awful lot more on the broadcast version. I remember years ago someone choosing Fairy Tale Of New York, describing what a joyful Christmas song it is and how it lifted them, only for the clip to begin at the very start, cutting off just at the end of Shane’s dirgy intro.
I’ve read that guests in the studio are played the whole song.
One of the old Word podcasts mentioned this. I forget who but the guest said it’s a bit weird sitting there listening to 3 minutes or so of your choice, in silence opposite Kirsty Young.
I think that was one of Ian McMillan’s guest spots in the pod. I don’t think it’s necessarily in silence. Depends on what’s playing. I’m sure I remember Kirsty remarking on one guest singing along.
One of his DID selections was “Donald Where’s Your Troosers” (one of only two records that his dad possessed), another one was “Moonlight On Vermont” by Captain Beefheart and yet another was a performance of John Cage’s “4’33”. He said there was some concern at the time that “4’33” might trigger the BBC’s system that automatically kicks in and plays music if there’s a serious technical failure, but Ian McM’s rumbling stomach and creaking chair saved the day.
They do indeed play the whole of each record in the studio at the time, in order to get the reaction of Kirsty and her guest of the week. There’s no cheating either. As long as the recording you choose exists and is available, it gets played.