My favourite genre is 60's pop but with there being so many I'll miss all but one out.

#1 : Genesis - The Musical Box

I played catch up with Genesis as I didn't discover them until Selling England which is my favourite album , I went forwards up to Wind and Wuthering then started at the beginning . Fox Trot's Supper's Ready would be a great desert Island track as it's several songs clumped together but The Musical Box is magical , classic Genesis , a Victorian story , melancholy and wonderfully uplifting with the ending crescendo , my favourite all time track of any band .

#2 : The Beatles - Hey Jude

They wrote better songs , but there is something eternally beautiful about Hey Jude , it's simple and has that ending that goes on and on but it could go on forever for me .

#3 : Bob Dylan - Desolation Row
 
A Bob Dylan masterclass of a song , ten six line verses , no chorus , 11 mins long , I'm always discovering new lyrics as nothing except the title is repeated , a song I could leave on repeat .

#4 : Pink Floyd - Brain Damage

I could easily pass over the whole of the Floyd catalogue except for this , for me it's why DOSTM exists , the whole album is just a prequel to the magnificent ending .

#5 : The Waterboys - The Song of Wandering Aengus

A band I've been a fan of since day one , An Appointment with Mr Yeats my favourite album and this my favourite song . All words are from the Yeats poem with music by Mike Scott . Achingly beautiful lyrics over a melodic tune on electric piano and flute . This song is unique by the fact it is the only time I have been lost for 5 mins at a concert , when the outro finished I remember snapping out of it and almost shouting no you can't stop , play on , play on .

#6 : James - Getting Away With It

I'm a big fan , they have written some great songs and this is one I never tire of and love singing along to like so many other people , seen them live a few times and this is always a highlight .

#7 : David Bowie - Heroes

I liken this to Hey Jude in so much Bowie has written far better songs and the bare bones of this is nothing to shout about until Robert Fripp puts that incredible guitar on top which carries the song , again never tire of it .

#8 : YES - Awaken

Bit of a toss up between this and The Revealing Science of God off TFTO , both songs are long and give a great account of what YES were all about . A song of complex , fast , playing ending in a beautiful ethereal awakening with Jon's voice high above . I would like the live version from Keys To Ascension the recordings of the 1996 concert are fabulous . 

#9 The Who - See Me Feel Me / Listening to You
A band I grew up with and from the album Tommy which brings back great memories the closing track .

#10 : Emerson Lake & Palmer - Lucky Man

Greatest song ever written ? Certainly by a 12 year old boy , I have played this song more times than any other and I couldn't be without it .

A book would be David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Luxury - A jukebox full of 60's pop 

Interesting that you bring up Betjeman as he may well be figuring in my list!

Doh! I broke the rule by splitting modern and classical, anyway.

I would say more than I wrote here

OK ~faux sigh~ because of all the moaning   I've done a "proper" ten this time, for my non-classical choices.


Dire Straits: Sultans of Swing. (1978 version - 1983)
The track that introduced me to Dire Straits, and turned out to be one of my few lead vocals with the band I played in. That's pretty much the only reason I chose it above anything else of theirs  I'll pick the live version on Alchem0y rather than the original recording.


Pink Floyd: Us and Them. (1973)
For a long time I resisted Dark Side... as I deemed it a bit of a sell-out. i.e. Uncool people were now raving about Pink Floyd and they weren't "our" private property any more. I eventually came to my senses, and it's Dick Parry's tenor sax that makes this track a favourite of mine.


Hawkwind: Sonic Attack. (1973)
One of my favourite authors, Michael Moorcock, had a hand in this track, and although I can't really quantify why it's my favourite that probably had something to do with it. This love was doubled and redoubled when I found a version on YouTube featuring Brian Blessed on vocals.


Harry Chapin: Mr Tanner: (1973 - version 1976)
To be honest, I could take ten Harry Chapin tracks to my desert island and not tire of them, and choosing just one doesn't do the rest of his catalogue justice, but this was my favourite and my late wife's favourite too, so it makes the cut. Beware when playing this song, I've found that it can attract the odd speck of dust to one's eye.  The version from "Greeatest Storie,s Live," is my choice.


The Byrds: The Ballad of Easy Rider. (1979)
So many great songs, but none, for me at least, so visceral as this one. It brings back the movie, which I saw one afternoon at the Ritz in Tonbridge when I was sixteen.


Al Stewart: Roads to Moscow. (1973)
Al is another artist like Harry Chapin, in that I could choose ten of his songs and it wouldn't scratch the surface of his songs that I love. I've chosen this one because it's a perfect example of his historical story-songs.


Bruce Springsteen: Jungleland. (1975)
That's the trouble with favourite artists, they wrote so many of my favourite songs. I was tossing up between this, and the incredibly powerful "American Skin (41 Shots)" but this just won out because it features the Big Man in full flow, and indeed, the whole band knock this track out of the stadium every time. The best way to hear Jungleland is a live version featuring the "Born To Run" touring lineup.


Warren Zevon: Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner. (1978)
Another great story-song from yet another artist I could choose 10 albums from, let alone 10 tracks, and I'm only allowed one. Bummer. It's the last song he performed in front of an audience, on The Late Show with David Letterman, before his death in 2003. Here's a useless Warren Zevon bit of trivia for you. Everybody seems to think of "Werewolves of London," when Warren's name is mentioned. Do you know who the rhythm section was for that recording? Bass: John McVie, Drums: Mick Fleetwood. Now disperse, go into the world, and amaze your friends with your humongously nerdy deep trivia knowledge.


Tangerine Dream: Cloudburst Flight. (1979)
There's not much to say about this one, except it's the track that is responsible for me having 76 Tangs CDs, and that's counting multi-CD sets as 1 and includes normal releases, soundtracks, and a lot of bootlegs.


Chicken Shack: The Way It Is. (1969)
This track defined my guitar "sound" for a long time and was responsible for many cries of "turn your f*ck*ng treble down," over the years. This song doesn't so much have a lead break, more a short interlude where Stan Webb spits musical razor blades at you. Oddly, this is the only track I've chosen because it specifically features one of my guitar heroes.

My luxury item would be a PC loaded with the DAW/music software of my choice, and I really don't care if that is cheating, because guests on Desert Island Discs are only allowed 8 pieces of music, so everyone who picked 10 (like me) has already cheated anyway.    My book choice would be the collected works of Isaac Asimov (including his non-fiction works).

I've just realised (hence my later addition of dates) that my entire 10 choices were originally released during a span of only 10 years - in fact 9 of them span only 6 years, and 4 are from a single year, 1973 - and I would have been between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age on their release. 

What was that other thread? "Why we think music from our youth is the best"? 

OK, that's 3-5am tomorrow taken care of.

An intersting selection there, Paul and properly in the spirit as it were ( I like the Ritz recollection).

I had a similar reaction to DSotM as you and it was quite a few years until I 'grew up' enough to appreciate it! I've experienced "Sonic Attack" a few times in the flesh as it were and it is certainly up there among my favourite Hawkwind tracks.

There are some artists in your list that I do not know at all and I will certainly be taking a a listen to them in the next few days.

Did you ever play a pub on Pevensey Levels near Eastbourne? A band I saw there a couple of times back then used to play a great cover of "Sultans of Swing".

Actually, it was The Star Inn at Norman's Bay on the Levels.

No, I didn't say that. They just wouldn't be in my top 10.

EDIT: I so wanted Emmylou to be in my list.