My Top 3 Desert Island Songs by Thomas Lester https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db If I'm ever a guest on the BBC's Desert Island Discs radio show! en-us 2020-03-30 01:26:45 UTC 2020-05-11 15:47:23 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f3d3.png Song #1: "Where The Streets Have No Name" by U2 thomaslester https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481153241 This song would make my current Desert Island Discs list too because my connections with the song run so deep.  My memories connected to the song range from taping my brother’s vinyl copy of Joshua Tree in fifth grade, to my first solo drive when I was sixteen, to the first time I saw the desert when I was 22 when I realized that Bono isn’t even talking about streets at all. Maybe “Where The Streets Have No Name” is about a place within us; it’s about longing to transcend above where you are and wanting to connect with someone (or something) outside of yourself.  I still get chills at the end of the song when the Edge is doing his thing on guitar and Bono sings,
 
“We're beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled into dust
[…]
Oh when I go there
I go there with you
It's all we can do.”
 
Oh, and it’s also REALLY awesome to play loud while driving through the American southwest with people you love, and your windows wide open.


(This is my favorite version of the song. It's from a show in Boston. The whole video is good, but "Where The Streets Have No Name" starts at about 6:13.)


]]> 2020-03-30 01:36:49 UTC https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481153241 Song #2: "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen thomaslester https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481160497 I'll show my age here; I had a Maxell 90-minute tape that had Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run on one side and Born In The USA on the other. Born in the USA had just come out and was on the radio, so I probably played that more, but the song "Thunder Road" resonated with me even as a young kid.  The structure of the song is so simple: the speaker picks up his girlfriend and they drive at night. But there's so much more to it!  For me, the song captures the feeling of wanting more out of life-- the desire to escape the life you know because of the potential for something else, something different. 

In English class we talk a lot about imagery.  Bruce paints a picture early: "The screen door slams / Mary's dress waves / Like a vision she dances across the porch / As the radio plays."  You can see it.  You can hear it.  You can almost feel the summer night. I wouldn't have called it "imagery" back then, I just knew it was good.

Back then, some parts of the song eluded me too, and I liked that I didn't understand it all. I wasn't sure what Bruce meant when he sang, "There were ghosts in the eyes / Of all the boys you sent away / They haunt this dusty beach road / In the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets," but it didn't matter.  

I knew it was beautiful, and sometimes, that's enough.  

(This live version is the best one I've found.)]]> 2020-03-30 01:51:54 UTC https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481160497 Song #3: "Ode To My Family" by The Cranberries thomaslester https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481162827 First of all, it's catchy. Those "doo, doo, doo, doots..." come on!  And second of all, I couldn’t figure it out right away-- and NOT being able to easily figure something out was exciting to me back then.  How could a song seem both bitter AND fondly nostalgic at the same time? This song manages to capture complex but ultimately loving feelings for parents, for family, or maybe even for someone who broke a heart.  20 years later I still can’t quite pin this song down, which is kind of how I remember most of growing up— a constant struggle to figure out feelings that just kept swinging all over the place.]]> 2020-03-30 01:55:49 UTC https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481162827 Here are my Desert Island Discs, high school style. My list as an adult would be different, but since I'm giving you this assignment as high school students, I figured I would make my sample Padlet with a selection of songs that I loved back in the 1990s. So these are some of the songs that spoke to me back then and helped me figure out something about myself or taught me something about the world. Looking back, I'm so grateful for the music I listened to and for what it did for me; sometimes it simply exhilarated, sometimes it comforted by making the world seem less lonely, and sometimes it showed me that there was a much bigger world out there. Waiting... just waiting... thomaslester https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481254183 2020-03-30 04:34:30 UTC https://padlet.com/thomaslester/ifrnbuwzb3db/wish/481254183