DESERT ISLAND DISCS

Transcript of my appearance on Desert Island Discs, April 1st 2006.

Sue

My castaway today is a theoretical physicist who is virtually unknown outside academic circles; indeed, outside academic circles associated with his own particular sub-division of his own subject. He did the usual bunch of O-levels, A-levels, degree and PhD, and ever since has been doing research in elementary particle theory and for the last 20 years teaching mathematics at Liverpool University. He is of course Tim Jones. Tim, why do you suppose that I, for example, had no idea who you were before I read the script for this programme?

Tim

Well, Sue, I don't think I'm the exception; academics with a high public profile are rather unusual. I must say I admire their energy: Hawking, Dawkins, Jacqueline Rose...funnily enough I remember Jacqueline Rose at Oxford, she....

Sue

How fascinating. Anyway, what's your first record?

Tim

When I was 15 or so I spent most of my spare time playing chess with my best friend Brian. I'd had very little interest in music of any kind, but one day he brought round the Dylan single "Like a Rolling Stone". The B-side, which we listened to first, was "Gates of Eden" and it turned me instantly into a lifelong Dylan fan. So my first choice, for Brian, is "Gates of Eden", from "Bringing it all back home".

Dylan: (short guitar riff and then bawls:)

"Of war and peace, the truth just twists, the curfew gull it glides.."

Sue

Yes. Well, after an uneventful childhood you went to Oxford. It was 1968: Paris was in flames, students were in ferment everywhere. Anything newsworthy happen to you in that exciting era?

Tim

Not really. I fell in the Cherwell once...

Sue

Did you really? Perhaps it's time for your second record?

Tim

This one is for Clare. She was my first girlfriend; she was kind and honest and is now a doctor. As can happen, by the time I realised I was in love with her, she had realised she wasn't in love with me. But we're still friends, I think. At the time folk music was popular; I was devoted to all the obvious people and developing a taste for the more obscure areas in blues and so on. I even learned to play guitar after a fashion. We both loved Leonard Cohen, so my second record is one (out of many) essential Cohen tracks: "Famous Blue Raincoat", from "Songs of Love and Hate".

Cohen: (infinitely depressingly)

"It's four in the morning, the end of December, I'm writing you now, just to see if you're better...."

Sue

After that it's hard to summon the will to live, let alone continue with this. Are you sure nothing interesting happened when you were an undergraduate?

Tim

Well I played a lot of chess. So my next choice is for Roger Smith, another chess-player. (Now a professor of mathematics at Texas A&M). He had a piano in his room, but he didn't have a stereo, so he kept bringing round his Shostakovich 5th symphony recording and making me play it. Eventually I realised I liked it. Liking Shostakovich made liking 19th century composers easy; to my surprise I found I did, and I started going to hear string quartets and even quite enjoying them. Years later Julia and I later went to a Proms concert including a performance of the Shostakovich 5th which moved me very much.

L'Orchestre de la Suisse Ramonde (Kertesz)

Shostakovich 5th (Largo)

Sue

Well that made Cohen seem cheerful. Anyway, it must have been a very exciting time to be at Oxford, as the sixties generation came of age... you must have run into a lot of present-day household names...

Tim

Well I once heard quite a good speech by Giles Brandreth at the Union, he...

Sue

Time for your next record, perhaps?

Tim

I stayed on at Oxford to do my PhD, sharing a house with three other physics postgrads, none of whom stayed in the field and all, therefore, obviously now much better off than I am. In autumn 1973 I was beginning to work on what became my thesis, and involved with Victoria Love. Music was a big part of my life then, so it's hard to associate a single song with her: one possibility is "Forever" by Roy Harper. He was one of the best British singer-songwriter-guitarists of the period. The song is superficially cheerful but actually melancholic, as you realise that the refrain "Don't you think we're forever?" is a desperate plea for reassurance rather than an affirmation.

Roy Harper

"But I'd like to think as we lie here That all we've got will be ours, forever... Don't you think we're forever?"

Tim

But I think I would have to choose "With or without you", by U2. It's such a perfect piece of music, on the same level as "I can see for miles".

BONO

And you give yourself away

And you give

And you give yourself away

Sue

Yes I see what you mean. So it didn't work out with Victoria?

Tim

No. We're still friends though; or rather we are now again, after a twenty year gap. In spring 1974 I started dating Julia; we were married in 1976 in St Edmund Hall Chapel. It's been impossible to imagine life without her ever since. So my next choice is for her: it's "You're Missing" by Bruce Springsteen. We saw him in concert in Paris in 2002, probably the best concert I've ever been to. The song is from his 9/11 album, "The Rising", and it's about knowing that the person you love is never going to be there again. I think he captures what it would really be like. Julia died in March 2020, and I miss her every day. My choice of song (made in 2006) seems eerie now.

Springsteen

"You're missing, when I shut out the lights

You're missing, when I close my eyes

You're missing, when I see the sun rise

You're missing ......"

Sue

I don't suppose you could come up with something a little more cheerful?

Tim

Well this one is for my son Owen. Growing up he was soon a far better musician than I am, and developed his own musical taste; one of the first things he persuaded us to listen to that we really liked was the album "69 Love songs" by Magnetic Fields. It's still one of our favourites for long car journeys. This particular track is called "Come back from San Francisco"; most of the songs are sung by obvious genius Stephen Merritt but there are some nice ones with female vocalists and this is one of them.

Shirley Simms

"Come back from San Francisco

It can't be all that pretty

When all of New York City

Misses you ......"

Sue

Do you know, I almost found myself enjoying that. Can you surprise me again?

Tim

I'm sure you're going to like this one Sue. It's by Jeffrey Lewis from his album ``The last time I took acid I went insane, and other favourites'' and it's called "The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song". This is for Craig, because he introduced me to Lewis and the whole anti-folk genre.

Jeffrey Lewis

"Walkin' up 23rd street, I was tired and alone

It was late, my housemate would be asleep when I got home

the sign ahead, glowin' red, said the Chelsea Hotel

where nancy and syd vicious (and my friend dave) once dwelled"

Sue

That's quite enough of that, thank you.

Tim

How about this one then? This one is for Ian Jack. When we moved back form the States in 1985 I was in a bit of a time-warp musically: we'd only gone to Blues Clubs there and the FM radio stations we had listened to played "Stairway to Heaven" a lot. One night I watched "Stop Making Sense" on TV because I recalled him mentioning "Talking Heads" and was riveted from "Psycho Killer" on: but my favourite song by them is the uncharacteristically cheerful "This Must be the Place"

David Byrne

"Home...is where I want to be

But I guess I'm already there..."

Tim

And my next record is a complete contrast; I would like..

Sue

I dare say. What a pity you've already had your eight choices.

Tim

What? But I haven't had anything by the Clash yet! Or Joni Mitchell! Or Wreckless Eric! Or Schubert! Or Show of Hands! Or ...

Sue

Well, sorry. So if you could only take one of the eight, which one would it be?

Tim

None of the above, in fact. I was saving my favourite artist for last; so if I'm only allowed one record it would have to be by Richard Thompson. He's been writing and singing extraordinary songs and playing superb guitar for over thirty years. We saw him play in California in 2006 and he was fresh as ever. If I had to pick one of his songs it would be "Calvary Cross". Either the original version from the "Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" album, or even better (partly because Julia and I were there) the live version recorded at the Oxford Polytechnic 1975 concert, which is on the "Guitar, Vocal" album.

Richard Thompson (several minutes of virtuoso guitar, then:)

"I was under the Calvary Cross..

When a pale-faced lady, she said to me:"

Sue

Well all right, anything to get this done. Finally, we give you a Bible and a complete Shakespeare, so..

Tim

May I have "The God Delusion" instead of the Bible?

Sue

Don't be silly. Come on, a book and a luxury item please?

Tim

My favourite novel is "The Serial", by Cyra McFadden. It's very funny.

The Serial

Tim

For a luxury, a guitar and the Richard Thompson songbook (if he ever finishes it).

Sue

Fine. Tragically, that's all we have time for. Thank you Tim, it's been real.