I ’ve given up listening to The Archers omnibus over a late breakfast on a Sunday morning. Can you recommend some music to fill the gap where the old, slow-paced, engaging Archers used to be, before the melodrama took over? Not too challenging, perhaps a bit tedious at times, but melodic with just enough pace to keep the attention?
Ah, yes, the Archers: small town hullabaloo turned up to 11. It’s not my cup of tea, either: I have enough hysteria with my own brood. But, as Dylan Thomas wrote, out of chaos comes bliss, and what bliss is Sunday morning! Sacred and full of ritual, even (or especially) for the irreligious: the coffee-making, the greasy hair, a haven of time with promises of a Sunday roast and a good bottle of red at the end of the line.
So, to the playlist. A sonic accompaniment to a bundle of Sunday papers and a luxurious late breakfast. Start with the understated elegance of JJ Cale’s My Baby And Me, a lullaby of a song heaped with syrupy pedal steel. Next, enter the world of Boubacar Traoré’s Je Chanterai Pour Toi by playing Duna Ma Yelema, with its background noises of a Malian village (a million miles from Ambridge). Now let Lester Young’s lazy delivery in Body And Soul lap gently on your shores. Then put the needle on Christy Moore’s The Song Of Wandering Aengus and quietly celebrate the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats. Now there’s a man who could tell a story.
Of course, you could just do it the easy way: next Sunday at 10am, as that Barwick Green theme starts, fiddle with the dial and find the Doctor herself on Radio 6 Music, playing a full three hours of Sunday-best tunes. You won’t even have to leave your seat.
• Post your questions to Cerys below.
