Inheritance Tracks, Radio 4
Rory Stewart: The Long History of… Ignorance, BBC Sounds
Inheritance Tracks is essentially a potted Desert Island Discs in a slot on Saturday Live.
But it has its own podcast series too, so you can tune into Peggy Seeger or Adam Kay.
The idea is that guests talk about tracks they’ve inherited from their parents and those they’d pass on to their children.
Comedian Ed Gamble said his mother was a huge fan of David Bowie, as he chose Lady Grinning Soul from the album Aladdin Sane.
He remembers how she lit up talking about seeing Bowie on the Ziggy tour, and how they went together to a concert and watching her react was like getting a glimpse into the younger woman she was before he was born.
Gamble can still remember the time when he was allowed to leaf through the family LPs – the tactile nature of it, the artwork, the feel of the old flood-damaged cover of Aladdin Sane.
The collection in his house was eclectic – you could find Bowie beside Abba and the recorded poems of Pam Ayres.
And what would he pass on to the next generation? It would have to be Black Sabbath, he said.
“Absolute pure heavy metal… It feels so raw it absolutely blew me away.”
This is a very quick slot. It felt like a gallop rather than a saunter, but it’s an invigorating gallop.
Gamble’s observations rang so true – how when you watch a parent enjoying music, you feel a connection with them.
We listen to our elder siblings’ music and our younger siblings pick up on ours.
I fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen when my brother brought the albums home from university.
In turn, I brought home LPs of The Kinks and Cat Stevens – beautiful artwork - from German flea markets on summers spent in the gherkin-pickling factory and my little brother fell in love with those.
Rory Stewart’s series on ignorance is thought-provoking.
“We know so little and we will die knowing so little and this can be deeply troubling,” he said.
It’s the strength of the individual interviews, ranging from writer and producer John Lloyd – known for Not the Nine O’Clock News and Blackadder Goes Forth – on a personal crisis; to artist Antony Gormley on the power of meditation, and former archbishop Rowan Williams on Down’s Syndrome.
This is worth listening to again and again… true food for the soul.
I fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen when my brother brought the albums home from university. In turn, I brought home LPs of The Kinks and Cat Stevens and my little brother fell in love with those