Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Sirens over the Thames - suggestions for a playlist please!

I've been drafting out a TV pilot, set in London 1941. In the first 4
minute the protagonist is caught on Hungerford Bridge, looking East over
the Thames as air-raid sirens sound.

Last night a scooted out of the Festival hall (good spot for reading
with a glass of wine - lots of big sofas) with my ipod on shuffle - and
what came up as I stepped onto Hungerford bridge for the first time
since I downloaded it...?

Very overcast - not a good night for a bombing raid, so I think I will
sleep easy.
Perhaps I should go to bed under the table, in an overcoat, with a torch
and powdered egg to hand, just for research purposes.

(Of course, the situation in the Caucasus adds a horrible edge to the
retro feel of the week - a superpower invades a neighbour over concerns
about an ethnic minority in a border region? Sudetenland, here we
come. How long before Brown shows up at Heathrow, waving a piece of paper?)

Now, why do I have an air-raid warning on my Ipod?
(What - doesn't everyone?)

Well. for the last few months I have have been setting up playlists for
different projects. It started casually enough - I just clicked on a
track that felt right, and let it run.

Gradually these have evolved into playlists, little aural puddles to
suck on to the Shuffle, sit in while I write.

Yesterday I set to work on a playlist on BlitzKids ("Wild young people,
up to no good in London 1941 " or "Bonnie and Clyde - with Petrol
Rationing" - ).

As well as the siren, I have already got some good plaintive numbers, "A
nightingale sang,,," and "I get along without you very well..." - but
I'm looking for more, unusual numbers, particularly "naughty" ones - the
sort of stuff that 1940s Daily Mail readers would have clamoured to ban
as having a "bad influence on the young."

Anyone got suggestions?

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