Desert Island discs 2015

Simply because.

Basically I like Eighties hair metal and opera! They're not so very far removed as you'd think.

Eddie & The Hot Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do

Back from when I used to drive around blasting out my The best punk album in the world ever! tapes (Volumes One and Two) in the late nineties, this great shouty anthem to individualism.

Mozart – Non so più cosa son

From The Marriage of Figaro. Librettist and defrocked priest Lorenzo da Ponte has Cherubino articulate being a confused and horny teenage boy far better than any whiny pop song ever could.

Handel – Ombra mai fu

Xerxes, King of Kings, Emperor of Persia and ruler of all lands from Egypt to India, admires a plane tree in Sardis prior to his ill fated invasion of Greece.

Never was a shade
of any plant
dearer and more lovely,
or more sweet.

What a tune.

Kiss – Crazy Crazy Nights

Much like Do Anything You Wanna Do, this is a mob-handed, shouty chorus, song about ploughing your own furrow and not giving a stuff about what anyone else thinks about it. Anyone feeling marginalised because they're not into what the orthodox mainstream is telling them they should be into can take heart from this: you're not alone.

Malcolm Arnold – Four Cornish Dances

From the springtime jollity of the Furry Dance, to the fog enshrouded moors, to tiny fishing villages; Cornwall positively oozes from the speakers

Whitesnake - Here I Go Again

The lyrics make an attempt at profundity but it's pretty meaningless really. Don't sit around I guess it means. Whatever, it sounds so great. (And yes, I do actually prefer the Americanised, synth-washed, hair-bleached, reworking, to the oil encrusted, horny handed, British original. A travesty I'm sure.)

Fairport Convention – Who knows where the time goes

It's always jaw-droppingly impressive when people so young write words of such maturity. Sandy Denny was 20 when she wrote this. The song's sentiment is all the more impactful on account of Denny's tragic early death aged just 31.

Mozart – Là ci darem la mano

From Don Giovanni. We already know she'd be just another notch on the ultimate cad's bedpost and she's already betrothed to another; but she and us are still seduced by the Don's smooth moves.