My Desert Island Discs

List of the 10 songs I feel have most affected / influenced my life

Based on the Writing.com prompt, "If you were going to give someone a playlist with 10 songs that, together, most represent who you are as a person, which 10 would they be?"

There was once a syndicated radio program in the 1990’s called “Desert Island Discs.” Each week, a different person (usually someone in the recording industry) would be asked to list the 10 songs they couldn’t do without if stranded on a desert island. This article is going to be a slightly different take on that – the 10 songs that I feel most represent who I am as a person, or have had some sort of influence on me.

Sitting down to write this, I first thought it would be simple – pick 10 songs that I’ve enjoyed over my 50-plus years of life. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Then I realized, we’re not just talking favorite songs here. We’re talking songs that have either influenced me, or somehow describe some aspect of who I am or how I came to be this way. This is a much taller order.

The first song, however, is obvious, both to me and to many that know me (especially through karaoke). It’s a classic rock song that, if it weren’t for fans and DJ’s of 70’s album rock, might never have become what it is today. To me, it’s the quintessential song by the Eagles… Desperado.

Some of you are probably saying, “Wait! That’s one of their signature songs!” And you’d be right. But when it was published as the title track of the group’s second album, there was never a plan of releasing it as a single. How it became famous was that at the time the album was released, radio stations were in the habit of playing most of the songs from an album (versus a select few released as singles by the studio, as done today). As it spread over the airwaves, Desperado the song gained a following. The group realized this and started including it in their shows – and the rest, as they say, is history.

How does this relate to me? When I was a regular karaoke singer, it became one of my standards, something I always enjoyed singing. A large part of that was because I saw myself in the song. I was that lone cowboy, out riding fences, avoiding the things that I might enjoy because I was afraid of being hurt by them. All through school, from grade school through college, I had a lot of acquaintances but very few close friends. I wasn’t anti-social, but I was largely in a shell, and didn’t break out until my high school and college years. Yet I still didn’t let too many people get close to me. And even now, when I’m down, there are times I turn back into that lonely cowboy, staying out on the range instead of coming in to the warmth of the bunkhouse, and to the people who are close to me.

Song number two is a lesser known piece by Marc Cohn. Best known for his 1991 release Walking In Memphis (another karaoke favorite of mine), I’ve actually found myself identifying more with his 2007 single, Live Out The String. He first started working on it in 2005, while recovering from being shot during a carjacking with his band in Denver. The bullet entered his head just above his eye, but only lodged under the skin, not penetrating any further. If I remember correctly, the doctor treating him said afterwards, “You are the luckiest unlucky bastard in the world!”

As he was recovering, Cohn saw coverage of the devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. It was a large inspiration for his album Join The Parade. Many of the songs contained references to the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, with themes of renewal and even redemption. There was one song on the album that hit those themes without specific references to Katrina, however – Live Out The String.

During this time, a friend sent Cohn a letter. In it was, reportedly, the sentence that would become the opening and ending lyric of the song – “Maybe life is curious to see what you would do with the gift of being left alive.” Other sentences in the email that referred to the Denver incident also found their way into the song. But for me, that lyric hit home.

At the time, I wasn’t sure why those words touched me so much. But looking back now, thinking of things in my past, how I handled / reacted to them, I realize that with a few different choices… I might not be here. And I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am today. I’ll be honest – more than a few times, I’ve had some very dark thoughts about my life. I look back and see instances where if I’d been thinking a little differently, I might have done something very drastic. There were times I despaired of not being good enough, not meeting expectations. That despair was strong enough that had my mind somehow been open to it, I might not be here writing this screed now. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if God / Fate / The Great Pumpkin / insert your choice of Deity here was sending me that same message – “Maybe life is curious to see what you would do with the gift of being alive.”

This leads me to song number three, which may seem like something of a jump. It’s the song that, more than any other, I feel has become this group’s signature – Don’t Stop Belivin’ by Journey. It’s one of very few songs (Desperado is another, along with Saturday In the Park by Chicago) that don’t need an introduction in concert; the playing of the first three or four chords / measures gets the audience on their feet and cheering.

Sadly, I’ve recently heard detractors of Don’t Stop Belivin’ say it shouldn’t be an iconic song of any sort. Their reasoning? The song talks about / glorifies (in their minds) prostitution, based I believe on the lyric “Strangers… waiting… up and down the boulevard… their shadows… searchin’ in the night… streetlights… people… livin’ just to find emotion… hiding… somewhere in the night!”

Personally, I disagree. To me, the song is about people leaving the world they know, looking for something bigger, something better, and running into the hard wall of reality along the way. It’s about the challenge of not giving up on yourself, on your dreams, when reality tries to smack you in the face. Sometimes the challenge is surviving, sometimes it’s thriving, sometimes it’s overcoming those dark moments that may send you careening down a wrong or dangerous path. And while some dreams / goals I’ve found unattainable (I know I’ll never have a pilot’s license, for example, due to health reasons), I know I can still keep striving towards new goals I didn’t have before (such as one day becoming a published author). I didn’t give up on myself in the past and I don’t do so now – because I don’t stop believing.

This next statement is going to sound a little crazy to some, but here goes. There are times when a song has been more than a song for me. I’ve felt it was a message from God, something telling me it was time to look in a different direction or to chance something new, or that I was finally ready to do something I was meant to do but hadn’t.

One particular instance occurred back in late 1995 / early 1996, sitting with a friend in her car outside a laundromat on a snowy night. I don’t remember the song that was playing on her cassette deck, but I remember what happened. We were listening to a cassette by a Christian Contemporary artist named Bryan Duncan. Though I can’t remember the name of the specific song, what I describe next makes it the fourth entry on this list.

As we were talking, a “feeling of warmth” came over me. I grew very quiet, and even slumped a little towards the passenger door next to me. Being a Preacher’s Kid, my friend saw it and also grew quiet – she knew that something was happening, and it was important. When I came back, I told her what I had seen in my head: a rotating red emergency beacon one would find on an ambulance, with the letters “E” “M” “T” repeatedly flashing at me, and at the end the red emergency light turning into an anti-collision beacon one would find on an aircraft. At the time, I thought it meant I was to eventually become a flight paramedic. That never happened. But I have been a Kansas-Certified EMT since march of 1997. And as I write this in late April of 2021, I have been an Air Medical Communications Specialist (e.g. “Life Flight Dispatcher”) for just over 20 years.

Another instance of this happened a few months later, with the same friend. We were at an Amy Grant concert, having a good time enjoying her various songs. Then came the live performance of the fifth song on my list – Lead Me On, from the album of the same name.

I have to preface this by saying that there have been numerous times where a song has influenced / inspired a particular writing project of mine. This was slightly different, more of an “awakening,” if you will. At the time, I had been associating the opening measures of Lead Me On with my ideas of somehow taking a writing project I had about a medical helicopter unit (mind you, this was before I became involved in EMS in any way beyond watching Johnny and Roy on Emergency! when growing up) and turning it into a tv show. (As John Lennon said in Imagine, “You may say… I’m a dreamer…”) In doing that, while sitting at the computer and listening to the song, I would talk like a pilot calling air traffic control to say I was lifting off, using the tail number of an aircraft in that particular story, Nine-Five-One-Alpha-Hotel. (By the way, that story has gone to the wayside, replaced by much more realistic stuff I’ve written since starting my current job and learning better.)

At the concert, while other people around us were standing and cheering, I found myself sitting down as the first chords of Lead Me On started playing. My hands moved to the positions they would be in if they were at the controls of a helicopter. I started to contact air traffic control – but this time, I was Six-Two-One-Victor-Sierra, not Nine-Five-One-Alpha-Hotel. As soon as those letters came out of my mouth, I started crying. My friend noticed and asked me what was wrong. I had to tell her I wasn’t sure, but something had just happened that had hit me hard.

It came together for me after I got home from the concert. I sat down at my computer to write a new entry in my “Stargate” files (what I called the journals I regularly wrote at the time). I opened the previous entry – and found “Victor-Sierra” staring me in the face. The letters stood for “Vagabond Soul,” a description I was using for myself at the time and how I saw my future. Everything was laid out there in that journal entry, made a few days before the concert. And when I showed it to my friend the next evening, she immediately understood why I had reacted the way I did.

Song number six is another Amy Grant piece, this time from her earlier Christian Contemporary career. It’s called Sing Your Praise To The Lord, from the album Age To Age. This time, however, it’s not the lyrics involved, but the orchestral-instrumental intro.

As I mentioned before, various songs have been inspiration for various pieces of writing, and this is no exception. This musical sequence is one I have used to visualize the start of a TV show based on one of my writing projects. (Someone in a writing group I once belonged to said that my writing seemed more like a TV or movie script than a novel. I will say that I feel I write very visually when I write.) The time it really hit home, however, wasn’t when I was writing.

In my time in my current job, we have had several fatality crashes of our aircraft. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with in this work. Because even if you don’t meet them personally, you still make friends of the flight crews you work with over the radios and phones. In January of 2005, I got the second hit of loss pain of that type when one of our aircraft went down, killing the pilot and paramedic.

In September of that same year, I decided to make a vacation out of visiting several of the bases I had been working with over time but had never visited. (I had been accused of doing the same the year before by various coworkers when I traveled to a gathering of friends in a different part of the country where several other bases I had worked with were located. Naturally, I took advantage of that 2004 trip to drop by and say hello! Hey, when you’re that close…)

Part of that September trip found me at the base that had suffered the crash the preceding January. I had several good visits there, joshing around with the crews and learning a few things I didn’t know in the process. Then at one point, the pilot says, “Step on this scale!” Deciding I wasn’t too heavy to fly with them, they tossed me a flight suit, making me ready to go out with them should a call come in.

Several hours later, as we’re relaxing in the base living room, we get alerted for an MVA flight not far from the base. (We had been half expecting it, as we’d heard traffic on the police scanner saying a helicopter might be needed.) Because we were anticipating, we were able to get off of the ground quickly. During the transport, I sat up front with the pilot while the med crew treated the patient in the back. I had the same seat for the trip back, when we flew over the previous January’s crash site. The pilot started to point out a landmark to me as we flew, only to stop and say, “Yes, you do understand what that means,” as he looked over to see me performing a Sign Of The Cross (yes, I was raised Catholic).

I imagine by this point, you’re wondering, “What does this have to do with Sing Your Praise To The Lord?” Well, the following spring, I was driving to work one afternoon and that song was playing on my car stereo. Most of the time when I listened to it (including drives to the office), I would picture the start of my “television masterpiece”: scenes of various people and events, people calling 911, dispatcher / communicators typing on computers and alerting units. This time, however, I had a clear vision of something else. I had gone back to that night in September, to the scene of the MVA transport I flew on. But this time, it wasn’t my memory of that night. The scene in my head was from outside the aircraft, standing next to it (whereas I had only been outside long enough to move from the back cabin to the copilot’s seat). I saw the crew walk up to and past my viewpoint, wheeling the patient to the back clamshell doors to be loaded aboard. Then it shifted to my vantage point in the copilot’s seat, and we lifted off. During the climb out of the LZ, in this sequence, I clearly heard EMS say over the radio, “(aircraft) is clear of the scene.” (I remember hearing that during my actual flight as well. I’ve chosen not to include the aircraft call sign here.) Not long after that, the vision ended – and I found myself crying out the name of the young lady paramedic killed in the January 2005 crash. As I write this, it’s been almost 15 years since I had that “music video vision” from my flight… and it’s still as clear in my mind now as it was then.

Song number seven is yet another “musical vision” song. This time, however, it was a writing inspiration. I was doing a late-night run to the store with this song playing on my car’s CD player, and things just started popping into my head. (I work overnights, and try to keep that schedule on my nights off. Because of that, if the store is open at 3:00 a.m., that’s when you shop. The nice thing about that is not having to fight crowds!) It was all related to a writing project I had going at the time (and still do; this is one of those “unfinished masterpiece” novels I have on my shelf).

There were two kickers with this song. The first is that the inspiration came not from the lead singer’s vocals, but a backup-lyric. The second is that once I started following this lead, I had so many ideas that my original thoughts got pushed back to the second chapter on that part of the storyline! What kind of backup lyric does that? Well, in this case, it was two words: “Turn Around,” the opening lyrics from the Bonnie Tyler hit Total Eclipse Of The Heart. I had the idea of that song being used to surprise the lead female character with the male lead’s presence on a vacation trip. (Here I go, writing TV / movies again!) It turned out that for the female lead, the song was a link to painful memories, something the male lead didn’t fully realize until the surprise was popped. It was also a case for me of learning more about a character as I’m writing, coming up with backgrounds / history I hadn’t contemplated until my fingers hit the keyboard. I’ve been surprised like that more than a few times in my writing, coming up with something for a character that I’d not planned on, yet having it work out.

Song number eight also has provided some inspiration to that same particular writing universe (not the same story, but an adjunct to it). Since it’s an instrumental, I’m probably the only one who will ever fully understand it. I had not gone looking for this song to inspire, yet it did. The first time I heard the group in concert, I was waiting for / hoping to hear a completely different song, an instrumental called Wizards In Winter. For those of you familiar with that song, yes, I’m talking about Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Their Winter / Christmas West Division (they have East and West touring groups) Tour Kickoff Show at the Mid America Center in Council Bluffs, IA, has become my own Christmas tradition. I’ve been to the concert 10 straight years, the string broken in November 2020 due to COVID-19 canceling the tour and replacing it with a livestream concert (which yes, I watched live).

Their song that has influenced me, however, is the one that is probably their holiday signature – Christmas Eve, Sarajevo 12/24. Many people refer to it as their version of Carol Of The Bells, which is one of the backbones of their song, along with another Christmas classic, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. It’s the only Christmas song I’ve ever seen people do headbanging to the melody! It’s also one of those songs that, if you know it, you recognize it in the first few measures. And even if it’s not part of the story portion of their Christmas Tour concerts (the first half of the show is a story-in-song based on one of their three Christmas albums, or their 1993 movie Ghosts of Christmas Eve), they play the whole song in the non-story portion, and a reprise of it to end the show.

How did the song affect my writing? I had been working on a story segment I called “Winter Night Flight,” about an EMS helicopter being dispatched on a flight and the ensuing mission. For a while, things weren’t coming together, and I was almost at the point of junking the segment. Then one night while sitting at the computer, Christmas Eve, Sarajevo 12/24 started playing. That was when I started putting things together. I’m not sure where I’m going to use the segment, or in which story I have going in that universe. But thanks to TSO, it’s a fully-fleshed idea instead of random thoughts. Amazing how music can do that (at least for me).

I have my number ten song selected. But for some reason, song number nine has probably been the most difficult to figure out. What song touches or has touched me, I find myself asking, that I haven’t discussed yet? I ended up making a list of “Honorable Mentions” (included at the end of this article) to see if any rose above that level to be in the main list. I ended up with quite a few. But as I thought about it, one stood out more and more. It’s a song that at times has been an inspiration for my writing. It’s also the song I play on my car stereo whenever I first hit the highway on a long road trip. The song is Love’s Theme by The Love Unlimited Orchestra.

This is one of those songs that people will most likely recognize when they hear it but not know the name or the group. It came out way back in 1973, and is a pop-orchestral instrumental. You can still hear it on various radio stations, especially “oldies” stations and Sirius XM’s channel 7, “70’s on 7.” The group was created by Barry White while he was working as a record producer, and eventually became his backup group (where they had their biggest success). Some may also remember the song from ABC Sport’s golf coverage, on which they used this song for a number of years. For me it’s one those “feel good” songs that help me get down the road in a good mood.

And finally… believe it or not… we come to song number 10, our final entry. This is a song that struck a chord in my when I first heard it as a child. And I truly was a child, as I was roughly eight years old when it was first released. It was probably the first song I ever heard that went beyond just music to touch me a little deeper inside (even if I wasn’t exactly old enough to understand that concept).

The singer / songwriter of this song already had a well-established career to this point, with several number one hits, and had even released a greatest hits compilation the year before. That proved to be rather ironic because, after releasing that compilation, he would release the song that would come to be his signature song and arguably his biggest hit (even if it didn’t reach number one on the U.S. charts like some of his other hits; this song topped out at number two). He was inspired to write it after reading an article in Newsweek about a boat sinking on Lake Superior during a late-autumn storm. The sinking happened on November 10^th, 1975. The artist in question is Gordon Lightfoot, and the song is The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. To me, it is probably one of the best ballads ever written. And if you think the song is good coming from a record or a CD, that’s nothing compared to how haunting it is to hear it live in person in concert.

Like I said earlier, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was the first song I ever heard that touched me inside, that showed me a song could be more than just music. It also helped me to start break out of the narrow collection of music I was listening to at the time, to expand beyond my favorite country songs and mom’s Easy Listening (some would say oozy listening) favorites like The Carpenters, Tony Bennett and Helen Reddy. Don’t get me wrong, they and similar artists were definitely talented. But at that point, and especially into my teenage years, I needed to grow beyond that small realm of music. I began to discover the wide variety held in my dad’s record collection (which included American Folk acts like The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, Irish Folk artists like The Irish Rovers and The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, and even German Beer Garden music) and then go beyond it to find my own music preferences. I was lucky that my dad not only didn’t stop me, but encouraged me (as long as I didn’t go off the deep end). Mom was less approving at the time; she actually freaked when I brought home the U2 album “War” with the first song being titled “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” (She never noticed that I was also becoming a fan of 30’s and 40’s Big Band music, especially Glenn Miller.) My teen years were a time of musical exploration, which in some ways is still going on today, and which can frankly be traced to a song that first came out when I was eight years old.

So, there you have it, my ten Desert Island Discs. The truth is, there’s a lot more than these ten songs I’d want / need with me on a desert island. You’ll see a lot of them in the “Honorable Mentions” down below. But more than any others, these ten are the songs that in one way or another have shaped who I am / led me to this point in life. I hope you finds these lists enjoyable – and don’t think me too screwy in the process. (“No comments from the studio audience, please!”)

Songs in order of presentation:
1. Desperado by the Eagles
2. Live Out The String by Marc Cohn
3. Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey
4. (unknown title) by Bryan Duncan
5. Lead Me On by Amy Grant
6. Sing Your Praise To The Lord by Amy Grant
7. Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler
8. Christmas Eve, Sarajevo 12/24 by Trans-Siberian Orchestra
9. Love’s Theme by The Love Unlimited Orchestra (written / composed by Barry White)
10. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

Honorable mentions / other favorites:
· Children of Sanchez by Chuck Mangione
                   o Overture version, with lyrics, clocks in at around 14 minutes
                   o Finale version, pure instrumental, clocks in at around three minutes (has also been a writing inspiration at times)
· Feel So Good by Chuck Mangione
                   o Album version, almost nine minutes long
                   o Radio version, around three minutes long
· Right Now by the Sammy Hagar-edition of Van Halen
· Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi
· It’s My Life by Bon Jovi
· Prayer ’94 by Bon Jovi (an updated, slow-tempo version of their song Livin’ On A Prayer)
· Eminence Front by The Who
· Chris by The Pat Metheny Group (from the soundtrack of the movie “The Falcon and the Snowman”)
· Kiss From A Rose by Seal (from the soundtrack of the 1989 film “Batman” with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson)
· Theme from S.W.A.T.
                   o TV theme song version from 1975 ABC television series
                   o Full song version released in 1975 by the group Rhythm Heritage
· A number of TV theme songs by Mike Post or Mike Post & Pete Carpenter
                   o Hill Street Blues (Post)
                   o The Rockford Files (Post / Carpenter)
                   o Law & Order (Post)
                   o Silk Stalkings (Post)
                   o Magnum, P.I. (Post / Carpenter)
· Hawaii Five-O by Mort Stevens and his orchestra
· Edge of 17 by Stevie Nicks
· City of New Orleans performed by Arlo Guthrie (originally written by Steve Goodman); Arlo’s story of how he first met Steve and heard the song is fantastic!
· New Year’s Day by U2
· Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller
· Saturday In the Park by Chicago
· Night Walk by Rick Braun
· Midnight Caller Theme by Rick Braun (his cover of the theme song from the Gary Cole television drama Midnight Caller)
· Intimate Secrets by Rick Braun
· Yah Mo Be There by James Ingraham and Michael McDonald
· Conviction Of The Heart by Kenny Loggins (specifically, the version recorded on his live album, “Outside: From The Redwoods”)
· If You Believe by Kenny Loggins (specifically, the version recorded on his live album, “Outside: From The Redwoods”)
· Leap Of Faith by Kenny Loggins (specifically, the version recorded on his live album, “Outside: From The Redwoods”)
· What A Fool Believes by The Doobie Brothers (originally written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins)
· Ride Like the Wind by Christopher Cross