Sue had a lifelong love of music.
From singing in the choir as a child – and having two of those performances in Chiswick pressed onto vinyl – she followed various artists across the decades, keeping herself up to date with new acts coming along which she added to her collection of CDs and records.She was an avid listener to music on the radio – from early pirate stations like Radio Caroline, to Capital Radio, and later to the likes of Bob Harris on Radio 2 – she loved to surround herself with great music.Her friends and family will have particular songs which will forever be associated with happy memories of Sue. And we have some of her record collection to inspect for clues. But rather brilliantly, at one point she shared her own ‘Desert Island Discs’ with an old friend, and it is a perfectly distilled selection of songs that Sue loved most.Those tracks – kept in the order in which she jotted them down – are:
- Ultravox – Vienna
- Eric Clapton – Layla / Wonderful Tonight
- Bryan Adams – (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
- Bryan Ferry – Jealous Guy
- David Bowie and Mick Jagger – Dancing In The Street
- Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending
- Janis Ian – At Seventeen
- Leonard Cohen – Suzanne / Resolution [Sue added ‘I think it’s called…’ – possibly ‘The Old Revolution’?]
It’s a typically difficult thing, narrowing down seven or eight favourite songs, so inevitably she included a couple of alternatives in the list above. She then also added not just one extra bonus song, but an entire artist or artist!
- Ryan Adams – Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.
- Neil Finn “with or without his brother”
So we should probably add to the above list the Ryan Adams track, as well as the entire discographies of Neil Finn, The Finn Brothers, Split Enz, and Crowded House…!As the Neil Finn song goes: she will have her way…