My Desert Island Quarantine-Friendly Song List

My team at work is compiling a Spotify playlist of everybody’s 10 top songs for listening when working at home (as we all are now). As we put together our lists, I thought about what music most appealed to me. The final lineup included songs that fell into groups marked by similar lyrical themes (finding and losing romance), along with pulsing, brass-driven boogaloo music, like the selections from Chicago, Tim Maia and Curtis Mayfield. 

Most of the songs call up stories for me: When I first heard them, where, the emotional connotations. Each one carries a satchel of memories and meanings, so I shared some context on each. Without further navel-gazing, here you go, in the order they came to mind:

Time Changes Everything, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. A rueful bookend for the first song played at my wedding, “Waltz Across Texas” by Ernest Tubb.

Out of My League, Fitz and the Tantrums. I heard this on the radio and it single-handedly renewed my faith in the power of pop music, once I tracked it down.

Lush Life, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. This is the lounge lizard life I lived, at least in my imagination.

Já Sei Namorar, Os Tribalistas. I first heard this Brazilian supergroup trio when taking an intensive Portuguese class one summer in New York at the excellent Brazil Ahead language program. The album Tribalistas would be one of my top desert island discs, if I found myself stranded on an island or, in current terms, in a house.

Move On Up, Curtis Mayfield. Everybody up and dancing for this one, from my favorite soul singer, full of drive to keep moving ahead despite the circumstances.

Introduction, Chicago. I've called this greatest first song on the greatest first album ever! From the very first note of its very first recorded song, Chicago showed a total vision and confidence in its music. Nobody’s been able to top the artistry of their first three albums, not even Chicago.

Sharon Jones, in blue dress at left, in Brooklyn's Prospect Park

Stranded In Your Love, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. I had the great honor of being in the right place at the right time to see Ms. Jones at her legendary concert at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on August 7, 2010. I love the line in this song, “Is this romance or circumstance?”

I Can’t Get Started, Bunny Berrigan. From the soundtrack of “Chinatown,” which completely changed my taste in music. I obsessed over this song and the soundtrack for years and finally tracked down a copy at the Virgin Megastore in London in 1984. I carefully brought it back with me to my studio apartment in Brooklyn. I treasure it to this day, if only I had a turntable to play it on.

Encontros e Despedidas, Maria Rita. I heard this song on a Brazilian telenovela in 2004 and it lodged in my consciousness with its evocations of meetings and good-byes in life. This was another song that took years for me to discover the artist and the song. I immediately bought every CD by Maria Rita.

Gostava Tanto De Você, Tim Maia. Here's an upbeat song with depressing lyrics. I think of him as the Barry White of Brazil, his songs are an echo of a certain time and place, full of what the Brazilians call saudade.

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