Cillian Murphy names his Desert Island Discs
It’s been half a year since Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer hit theatres, but Cillian Murphy is still the man of the moment. The Irish actor has been rightfully lauded for his considered and complex performance as the physicist, winning admiration from audiences and acknowledgement from award season. But long before he received an Academy Award nomination for acting, Murphy’s first creative outlet was music.
Alongside his brother, the future Peaky Blinders star spent his youth yearning for rock stardom. Inspired by the likes of Frank Zappa, the pair experimented with genre under the band name The Sons of Mr Green Genes. Their dreams of music success very nearly became a reality when they were offered a record deal, but it didn’t work out, and Murphy fell into acting instead.
This apparent misstep proved to be a blessing in disguise, as the Irish actor found success through Danny Boyle’s apocalyptic 28 Days Later, as the frontman of Brummie-based criminal gang the Peaky Blinders, and in a long-standing collaborative relationship with Nolan. Still, Murphy has never lost his passion for music, as he recently demonstrated during an appearance on BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
Picking out the songs that he would hope to accompany him if confronted with an unexpected stranding, Murphy displayed his love for the classics with picks that span rock icons like Queen, U2, and The Beatles. There’s nothing particularly off-kilter on the list, a choice Murphy consciously made. “I showed a couple of friends the list, and they said, ‘Oh, that’s good, Cillian. There’s no weird, crazy, obscure stuff on there for a change.”
While many of us would love to hear about the obscure depths of Murphy’s music taste, he opens his picks with the opening track from one of the most beloved records of all time: ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ from Paul Simon’s Graceland. Pairing bouncy instrumentation with despairing imagery and distant constellations, it’s a fitting pick.
The list that follows includes the Queen classic ‘Somebody To Love’, The Beatles’ tentatively optimistic ‘We Can Work It Out’, and the contemplative Radiohead song ‘Everything In Its Right Place’. The actor also finds a place to spotlight traditional Irish singer Séamus Ennis and fellow Cork-born band The Frank and Walters.
A demonstration of his continued love for rock and a dream that was overshadowed by another, Murphy’s picks are the perfect desertion accompaniment. Find the full list of tracks below.
Cillian Murphy’s essential songs:
- ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ – Paul Simon
- ‘The Wandering Minstrel’ – Séamus Ennis
- ‘Walter’s Trip’ – The Frank and Walters
- ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ – U2
- ‘Somebody to Love’ – Queen
- ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ – Radiohead
- ‘We Can Work It Out’ – The Beatles
- ‘If I Was A Painter’ – Lisa O’Neill
