Nearly every Brit at some point in their life has played the Desert Island Discs game, whether it’s at a family meal, a wedding, or even just passing the time in the office, we all have a favourite album ready to go if the question is ever to be asked.
The BBC radio show has become such an engrained part of culture having been on the air waves for more than 80 years – first airing in war time in 1942.
For anyone that is somehow unfamiliar with the Desert Island Discs, the show involves one famous face being castaway on a desert island, they can take one book, one luxury, the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and perhaps most importantly eight of their favourite records.
The show has had various hosts of the years, with Roy Plomley enjoying the first 43-year run before Michael Parkinson, Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young took the helm, with Lauren Laverne now hosting the show since 2018.
Unsurprisingly for Britain’s longest running radio show, some big name guests have become cast aways including Tom Hanks, Judi Dench, David Attenborough and Maya Angelou to name just a few.
Perhaps the reason the show has become such a hit is how close it allows you to feel to some of these celebs. Their music choice gives such a perfect insight into who they are inside that it has kept listeners coming back for more for more than eight decades.
But among all those guests and the thousands of tracks that have been chosen, the most popular ever choice has left many fans surprised.
Deciding one of the all time great songs isn’t an easy task and when Rolling Stone decided to choose their greatest 500 songs of all time hits such as Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles, Respect by Aretha Franklin and Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan all made the top 10.
But when it comes to Desert Island Discs the most popular song is something widely different, having been first composed in 1742.
Having been chosen a whopping 119 times, Handel’s ‘Messiah’ scoops the number one spot for castaway picks. The oratorio created by the British-German composer is one of his best-known pieces and a favourite of many of the guests in the show’s earlier days.
As the famous in those days tended to be of a higher class and more old-fashioned, classical music dominated the early episodes, but as it transitioned to the wide range of people it has today, pop music became the go-to.
Fans of the show may also be suprised to find out the most popular non-classical song isn’t even in English and is in fact Non, je ne regrette rien by Edith Piaf – a piece still very recognisable to this day as it provides the backing to many Hollywood features.