Atticus   

A post by my blogging buddy Jimmy at Rivers Are Damp led me to start thinking about albums I’d want if I were stranded on a deserted island, a la Tom Hanks in Castaway. (Yep, I know I’d need an endless supply of batteries and a CD player. Work with me.) So here’s a couple to get me started. I’ll add more as I get them written in future days.

Crowded House
Crowded House
It’s nighttime, and I’m in my ’79 Cutlass, driving the knobby blacktops of the rural mountain town in North Alabama that I call home. Like a tiller plowing a row, I’m turning over the same ground in my mind again and again, pulling from what little knowledge I’ve absorbed in my 17 years to try to reconcile my feelings of isolation and sexual confusion with my faith, my family and my culture.

This album was my soundtrack to those tumultuous months. Almost 20 years later, I can’t hear “Hole in the River” without thinking of my best friend, his battle with suicidal thoughts and the war for him in my heart between philos and eros. Most people know it only for “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” which I still consider one of the top five songs of the 1980s (bested only by “Holding Back the Years,” in my book).

I still believe Neil Finn is one of the most underappreciated songwriters of the last 25 years. If this one weren’t available, then the band’s Woodface or Together Alone would easily suffice.

War
U2
I first became aware of contemporary Christian music when I was 12 or 13 years old. I’d never heard any songs by artists such as Petra , the 77s, Steve Taylor or Whiteheart, but they were advertised and critiqued in Campus Life, a magazine for evangelical Christian teen-agers.

In 1982 or 1983, the editorial staff bestowed the title of Album of the Year on U2’s War. I didn’t know the band; I didn’t know the album. But I was young and relatively new to purchasing music.

It wasn’t until a year or two later when Friday Night Videos premiered “Pride (In the Name of Love)” that I finally heard the four guys from Ireland.

Soon after, I bought The Unforgettable Fire and then went back and bought War. I’d choose to be stuck with it over any others from the band simply because it sounds so raw and so earnest.

U2’s overwhelming success and Bono’s high public profile has made many people sick of the band. But I still enjoy them today as much as I did more than 20 years ago.