On The Player Now

Introduction

Almost every morning I publish a #TabletArt piecture on Instagram, Facebook and Threads and I have documented it, as you might expect, here:

However, I do play a lot of CDs and I only listen to the radio occasionally and do not use any music streaming services. I then thought I could use Instagram to let people know what I am listening to.

Recently Instagram added the capability of adding thirty seconds of a song to your Instagram post. At first, I thought that it was limited to what they chose for you, but then I found that a search can bring back almost anything.

I do find it interesting to hear what people add as I scroll through Instagram.

One thing is that they can bring back a ten-minute song, but your Instagram post will just get a designated thirty-second snip. This is licensing and copyright stuff, but if you like the thirty seconds you hear you might go and buy the record, which is good for artists.

Here is the Instagram feed for #OnThePlayerNow.

So we are going to go backwards with a few of the songs that found their way on to my player recently.

Delia Derbyshire and The BBC Radiophonic Worksop - "Dr Who Theme" from "Doctor Who Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1969"

This still amazes me. I first heard it when I was maybe five or six, and I am still impressed. It is playing as I put this piece together. You may know the revamped version of the theme but this is the original.

Belly - "Feed The Tree" from "Star"

One of many CDs in my collection that I probably haven't played ever. I picked this up second-hand from my local library for 25p, and it is very good. This will be getting a lot of plays going forward.

Robert Wyatt - "Just As You Are" from "Comicopera"

I love all of Robert Wyatt's work, from his time with Soft Machine and various collaborators. This has Robert singing with Monica Vasconcelos and was co-composed with Alfreda Benge. It is a beautiful song.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - "Jesus Alone" from "Skeleton Tree"

During the sessions for this album (which were almost complete), the tragic news broke that Cave’s son had died, this in turn led to several lyrical amendments being made.

The sound is both minimal and a little frightening, but it is an amazing album. It is frequently on my player so was almost certain to be included on this list.

Betty Boo - "Where Are You Baby?" from "BooMania"

Some enjoyable nineties pop that I picked up from somewhere because I liked almost all that I heard from here. Playing this today, I didn't ski any tracks, so it does stand the test of time for me.

The Byrds - "My Back Pages" from "Younger Than Yesterday"

I think The Byrds were responsible for getting me into Bob Dylan although they were silk to Bob Dylan's sandpaper. This song is one of my favourites mainly for these lines:

Crimson flames tied through my ears

Rollin’ high and mighty traps

Pounced with fire on flaming roads

Using ideas as my maps

“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I

Proud ’neath heated brow

Ah, but I was so much older then

I’m younger than that now

Joy Division - "Isolation" from "Closer"

This is from Joy Division's second and final album before the suicide of Ian Curtis. It is relentless, I think a Martin Hannett production. They were contemporaries but the made it and my band The Bok didn't.

The Cure - "Lullaby" from "Mixed Up"

The opener from their remix album, but it is The Cure so you know it is close to perfection.

The Nice - "America" from "Elegy"

Back to the sixties for this one and Keith Emerson's grandiloquent destruction of Sondheim and Bernstein's "America from "West Side Story".

A suitable closer to this playlist.