Desert Island Discs with Ed Romanoff

If you had to go away for a while and you could only take five of your favorite albums with you, which ones would you choose? Yes, we know it isn’t a fair question, but that hasn’t stopped us from asking music fans who happen to be recording artists in their own right. This edition of Desert Island Discs comes courtesy of singer-songwriter Ed Romanoff, whose self-titled debut album is out now. Check out Ed’s music and upcoming tour dates at his site — after reading his Desert Island picks, of course.

If I had to list my five favorite records of all time that I would take with me to a deserted island, my head would explode — with my luck, I’d show up with five records and the island would only have an 8-track cassette player. So instead, here are my favorite 10 songs of all time…

1) Thin Blue Flame by Josh Ritter This song wrecks me still…every time… it is a gorgeous song with a vast landscape of concept and words and Josh’s voice is one of my favorite sounds in the world.

2) Hold Your Head Up by Argent This was a song I loved as a kid…the message was good for my little head, and the bassline is an anthem.

3) A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan Are you kidding me? What a fantastic song…it feels like a conversation between a mother and a son, but who the hell knows with Bob Dylan — there’s so much great stuff in there He breaks all the rules, I like that about it too.

4) Eclipse by Pink Floyd It’s hard to pick a favorite Pink Floyd song, but this outro is killer.

5) 5:06 am, Every Stranger’s Eyes by Roger Waters I think he might have been both sides of the blade of success and demise of Pink Floyd, but this song is so good — the vocal is so moving. I wish I could have seen them record it — the last two minutes has ridiculous fireworks of drumming and it features Eric Clapton on guitar. Roger Waters is someone I’ve ridden on an elevator with, but it’s probably better not to know him.

6) Soulshine by the Allman Brothers The harmony lead in this song — and the message — are from heaven.

7) Albinoni Addagio in G minor for strings This is the most powerful nine minutes of music I have heard in my life — the classical sound of struggle and redemption.

8) Chain of Sorrow by John Prine He is the absolute master in my book, and the message in this song mends my heart. He’s also a prince — I met him one time in a hotel lobby in Memphis and his wife thought I was a stalker, but he still gave me a guitar pick anyway.

9) The Comedians by Elvis Costello. The Roy Orbison live version is the best delivery of any song I know of besides maybe Pavarotti…the acoustic demo of shows how flawlessly written the song is and highlights the Bach-like B section.

10) Many Rivers To Cross by Jimmy Cliff His voice is sublime — and I had to pick one song that would sound great on the 8-track player on the island.