This is not what I intended to write to you to about today. I’ve kept the “I have dreams of Orca whales” subject because it’s a lyric I like, but otherwise I am saving you from me.

For what this was going to be was a Desert Island Discs kind of thing. Earlier this week a friend mentioned that she doesn’t tend to like women singers and in response I was startled to realise just how much I do. I told her that I’d have to think about it, but I was sure that most of my Desert Island Discs might well be women. It could easily be all of them, the only problem being narrowing it down to the requisite eight picks and then choosing a luxury item, plus trying to figure out what to do with a bible.

If you do not know the BBC Radio series in question, you’ve still got the idea and as it happens you have something like 84 years of episodes to catch up on. Doubtlessly, all eight decades of castaway guests are more interesting than my telling you what music I like. I’m really surprised that I wanted to, as well, since there’s a thing in Apple Music where you can let friends know what you’re listening to and I cannot conceive of wanting to use that. Well, I might enjoy your music recommendations, but you have better things to do than know that so far this year I have listened to 37 minutes of Patty Griffin, 32 of Dar Williams, 32 of HAIM, 21 of Regina Spector, 14 of Kate Bush, 14 of Mary Chapin Carpenter, and 11 of Francisca Valenzuela.

Myself, I’m startled that Apple Music — and presumably Spotify — can tell you these things, and I find I like that I can see this. But I’m also thinking that Dar Williams has a whole new album out and surely I’ve listened more than half an hour. And only a total of three hours and twenty minutes of music in a month and a bit. I’m appalled.

Anyway, when you do listen to music, I realise that your choices describe you. Yet I’ve never used music to try describing a character in a script or a story. It’s somehow seemed indulgent if I ever even thought about it. Alan Plater became famous for how he used music in his shows, but it took a remarkably long time before he twigged the possibilities and, crucially, how jazz suited his style of writing. I don’t think it suits mine, said William as the saxophone solo in HAIM’s “Summer Girl” plays in the background. Nope, didn’t work.

Oh! I am suddenly reminded, god, I’m taken back all the way to school. A woman I had a crush on – wait, that sounds odd or possibly age-inappropriate. She was a student, I was a student, I had a crush on her, she very absolutely totally did not on me ever, ugh, the thought, as if. I think that was her opinion, but I could be mixing her up with one or seventeen other women. Anyway, I believe that I remember her telling me that I only liked Bruce Springsteen because he was fashionable. This would’ve been around his Born in the USA and maybe Nebraska albums. If it were the time of Nebraska, I was a far cooler student than either I or I suspect she, ever appreciated.

I still love that album but I didn’t think to add it or him to my Desert Island Discs list.

But then you’ve just seen a list of some artists I did include, and if you’d asked me around four days ago whether there was a connection between them, I would of course have said yes. Me. I am the connection, because I relish each artist. Of course I do, I wouldn’t have listened to them this much through the years if I didn’t.

Yet I’ve just been re-examining this in the light of that conversation with a friend and it took seconds to think of my truly favourite music, and then a few blinks to realise that every one is a woman. Not true, I think one was a band, but fronted by a woman.

I’d still say that this is of no relevance or meaning, but I’d previously have insisted that I just like what I like and there’s no particular pattern. Yet here I am, drawn to these artists when my friend would presumably not rush to any of them. I wonder now what has taken her down the road she’s gone, and of course I wonder what’s taken me down mine. Except I do see a strong preponderance of musicians who are also writers. That appears to be key to me, and I’m not shocked.

But I am still a bit shocked that I ache to list you all eight of what would be my Desert Island Discs, and I utterly adore that my iPad just tried to auto-correct the word “list” into “listen”. My iPad is telling me to listen to the music instead of recite lists to you. I see its point.

Especially since I only roughly got down to eight. Eight and a bit. Okay, thirty.

I need somewhere to jot them down so I can look back again later. I wonder where I could do that.

4 Non Blondes: What’s Up
Annie Lennox: Shining Light
Beth Orton: She Cries Your Name
Brandi Carlisle: The Mother
Carol King: It’s Too Late
Cyndi Lauper: Unconditonal Love
Dar Williams: As Cool as I am
Deb Talen: Bring Water
First Aid Kit: Waitress Song
Francisca Valenzuela: Tómame
Jewel: You Were Meant for Me
Kate Bush: Rocket Man
Lisa Hannigan: Ocean and a Rock
Lissie: Everywhere I Go
Lynn Miles: Undertow
Maria McKee: Never Be You
Martina McBride: Wild Angels
Mary Chaplin Carpenter: Simple Life
Meredith Brooks: Bitch
Michelle Shocked: Memories of East Texas
Patty Griffin: Useless Desires
Regina Spector: Hotel Song
Rosie Thomas: Since You’ve Been Around
Shawn Colvin: Sonny Came Home
Sheryl Crow: Soak Up the Sun
Sophie Ellis Bextor: Murder on the Dancefloor
Stevie Nicks: If Anyone Falls
Suzanne Vega: Cracking
Tanita Tikarum: Back in Your Arms
Texas: In Our Lifetime