Doyle made many drafts of his list. One didn’t include a Fall record, so had to be re-thought. Another featured favourites like Robert Wyatt, PJ Harvey and These New Puritans but again that was scratched. “Initially I was thinking about this as an all-time favourites list,” he says. “But one of the things that I was unhappy with when taking that approach was that the mood of them was all quite similar. They all seemed to have a very similar kind of pastoral melancholy feel.” So Doyle ditched that approach entirely. “I decided to write a list of albums that have had a significant impact in the direction of my life,” he says. “Maybe albums that were triggers for other experiences too. I think this is way more interesting to talk about than to just read someone talking from an analytical standpoint.”
So what we have is 13 records, mostly in chronological life order, that proved to be pivotal benchmark moments in Doyle’s life, soundtracking times both happy and sad.
Great Spans Of Muddy Time can be preordered here and you can watch him play a live-streamed gig on Friday evening – more info here. Click the image of William Doyle below to begin reading his Baker’s Dozen. .
