Conceived in 1942 by the BBC during the heat of the Second World War as a bit of escapism to help boost morale, Desert Island Discs is still going just as strong as when it first took to the air. During those bleak war years it offered listeners a much needed diversion and over time flocks of luminaries and leading figures from the political, arts, intellectual, and even sports worlds were invited to choose their eight favorite gramophone records and tell the listeners why they made that pick. As you can guess, it was not so much the pick itself, but rather the explanations that revealed the true glimpses of humanity in the guests.

Talking about a home run of an idea! Not only can you still catch the show on the BBC (via their website and podcast) but it long ago spilled the banks of the Atlantic and can now heard in the U.S. and other places in some variant or another—even down to where local and state leading lights as opposed to national figures are invited on as guests.

Much to the relief of many Britons, the show rarely became a stage for snobbery. Guests seemed to instinctively know not to delve into forms of music that were too remote or avant-garde, although there are certainly some stunning examples of pretension and self-importance. One musical celeb for example chose her own works to make up the eight musical selections…and no, it was not really a joke.

I am sure, however, that you are not surprised to learn that I have never been invited to be a guest. You do, after all, have to be someone of accomplishment to be on the invite list. Yet part of the fun of it all is that you don’t need to be a famous person sitting in a recording studio to participate. Everyone can play, so to speak, at home and you can try it out with your friends or family on a long flight or drive.

A s an average gent I admit to being a musical nullity. Not only did I have trouble, to say the least, as a youth in band, but as an adult I still struggle to say why I think that something is worthy of a good listen. After all, my collection of Led Zeppelin’s songs does not exactly lend itself to BBC level analysis as much as I like them. When I was ignominiously nearly cashiered out of band in middle school it was a clear signal that I had no career with the Pipes of Pan…. not even as a stage hand.

Fortunately many in the ranks of the average have strong instrumental and vocal skills and for them music is an integral and rewarding part of life. Those like me, however, who struggle with why a composer would need both a bass and treble clef, must be on guard against a distinct element of the high-hatted, high-browed, and high-nosed tenor (no pun intended!) that has crept into the American versions of Desert Island Discs and its cousin Desert Island Books.

I noticed this not long ago on a drive around the Northeast. It seems that many of the guests on our various Yank versions of the programs were taking things too seriously. They seemed to be trying to be living definitions of the words arcane and recondite. They were too obvious, for example, with the name-dropping of extraordinarily obscure jazz recordings, excerpts from a Bulgarian novelist, or passages of music so tendentious that even conservatory students would, like Odysseus, lash themselves to the mast with their ears plugged…except this time to prevent them from doing harm to themselves from such a painful listening experience instead of escaping the irresistable lure of the Sirens.

W orse was the sheer titillation that seemed to envelop these aficionados of the obscure. I noticed their knee-slapping delight, for example, in finding that some musician had mischievously shifted the key from B Major to E Minor in some seldom listened to passage of music. Their idea of jokes for a geekish cognoscenti to be sure.

Now I cannot fault experts for wanting to go deeper into a subject as they cannot be forever stuck at the starting line with neophytes like me. No blame then to them for looking for new things to read and hear, but debating the differences between Glenn Gould’s 1955 and 1981 recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations does get a bit tendentious for us in the masses.

Might I, from the bleachers of the average, offer a suggestion to those accomplished souls who might be invited as guests? For heaven’s sake don’t be so utterly dweebish about it! Is the fine point of a shift of register in one of Mozart’s works really worthy of peals of laughter? Is some reference to an 19th century Bolivian poet really as enjoyable as the scene of Dan Akroyd trying to hock his watch to Bo Diddley in Trading Places? No, I did not think so. Lighten up. Sure, challenge us to learn something new but at the same time just enjoy the tunes or books—it really won’t hurt you not to intellectualize it so much.

Btw, in case you ask what recording I would take to that uninhabited island. Well, that’s easy. I would take silence. Either 15 minutes of it as found in a particularly good recording here: Silence or else John Cage’s lively, evocative, and revelatory 4’33” which, happily enough, is also silence: Cage’s 4’33” Warning: Dear reader, if you cannot appreciate the mischievous irony of the orchestra tuning up only to remain silent for nearly five minutes then you are hopeless!

In the meantime, stay average!