Matthew Barzun

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is the American Ambassador to Britain, Matthew Barson. His posting, considered the cherry on the diplomatic cake, was bestowed by President Obama, presumably in part as a thank you for helping to transform campaign funding in the US and, as a result, Mr. Obama's own political fortunes. Back in 2007, my castaway's inspired idea was to ask millions of people to give a few dollars to the Obama campaign, rather than the traditional method of a few giving millions.

Presenter1:05

It sparked a grassroots movement of support and swelled the coffers of the rank outsider, enabling one of the greatest upsets in recent US political history, although an even bigger presidential shake up could be on the way.

Presenter1:18

In spite of gaining a reputation for throwing legendary parties at his lavish ambassadorial residence, my castaway believes diplomacy is less about cocktails and canopies and more about countries asking, listening and responding to each other on the big, difficult questions. Interesting then that he was brought up in that elevated strata of New England society where polite conversation studiously avoids the subjects of religion, money and politics. He says, I have continually sought new ways to get more perspectives on recurring difficulties and develop new solutions to old problems. So, Ambassador, welcome.

Presenter1:57

We tend to think of the upper echelons of diplomacy as taking place in a rather rarefied bubble, and yet you are somebody.

Presenter2:05

who during your ambassadorship has been out visiting, as I understand it, hundreds, maybe thousands of British school children and I'm wondering what on earth you've been doing by doing that and what you've been talking to them about.

Matthew Barzun2:16

Okay. Which is also what I tell these high schoolers, as we would call them in America. I guess I've been to 142 six-form colleges all around the UK. But I basically just give them a blank A5 card and a pencil and ask them to draw me a picture or write a word of something that frustrates or concerns or confuses them about the United States and what we're up to. So they do that. And the biggest single word is guns.

Matthew Barzun2:42

For the confusion, and nothing really comes close. And then you have police brutality, racism, healthcare, and increasingly, over the last few months, Donald Trump. And then they flip the card over, and I say, please write a word or draw a picture of something that gives you hope or inspires you about the United States. And there's no one big word that stands out, but opportunity is the biggest single one. And then food and freedom, sports, music, technology, NASA, and President Obama.

Presenter3:13

So the opportunity to hear and to speak to those young people, clearly that is something you relish as you go and visit them in this sixth form colleges. But you mentioned that the number one negative word that these students wrote on the cards about America was guns. And of course, on the 12th of June, your country suffered its worst mass shooting in its history by a single perpetrator. Forty-nine people were killed. Fifty-three people were seriously injured. It happened, of course, in Orlando at the Pulse Nightclub.

Presenter3:42

When you heard I imagine, of course, there was immense distress. Did you also feel very far from home at that point?

Matthew Barzun3:51

I did, in the immediate aftermath of that tragedy, I did feel far away. And then I felt the opposite of far away because I went sort of at the last moment to the Admiral Duncan in Soho, and I didn't know what to expect, but we had, there were 20,000 people just overflowing with love and solidarity for the tragedy that we had been through as a country. I was supposed to be heading to an official event in the center of London, and I saw this tweet that this was happening, and I just felt I wanted to be there. And the images from that night did fill up and are filling up homes across America, and they are doing their part, you know, in a small but important way to help us heal.

Presenter4:37

And here's the thing. It it seems unlikely that those students, if you go and visit them in Britain next year or the year after, are going to write anything different from guns as their primary concern about a problem in American society. What do you think?

Matthew Barzun4:50

No, look, I I I

Matthew Barzun4:52

I think it will continue to remain the number one issue, and it remains my number one challenge on how to try to explain it because it is so complicated. It's hard maybe for British people to understand, but our notions of freedom, how we want our freedom from this country, guns are part of it from the beginning.

Matthew Barzun5:11

Until we, and President Obama is passionate about this, in our system, until a group of people

Matthew Barzun5:18

Mobilizes and makes this issue number one, two, and three for them, and they mobilize against it, we will remain stuck.

Presenter5:27

We're here to talk, but we're also here to listen to the music, Matthew Barson. You are a very keen music fan. Yeah. Music means a lot to you.

Matthew Barzun5:34

Oh, it sure does. When I'm glad, when I'm sad, when I'm mad, and everything in between, I pull music into my life to get me through. Tell me about your first piece then, Matthew Barson. What are we going to hear? We are going to hear Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine. This is the song I have probably listened to the most during my coming up on three years here in the United Kingdom. And in the summertimes, my wife and children go back to the United States in Kentucky, and I am here alone. I mean, it's sort of fun for like a day, and then it gets quite lonely. And so I listen to this song a lot. It's about remembering. And I started listening to the song, and I was like, I'm going to write my own lyrics to this. And you'll hear it. It's a wonderful, sort of complicated rhyming scheme, or it was to me. And I'll write about this adventure we've been on as a family in Sweden and then back home and now here in the UK. And I have gotten absolutely nowhere. And I try, it's so hard, and it makes me appreciate what good songwriting is about.

Speaker 46:30

Boom.

Speaker 46:33

Remember me?

Speaker 46:36

I believe.

Speaker 46:39

By the rosebush laughing with brood

Speaker 46:45

This on my chin

Speaker 46:48

Time when

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County black compass in your house

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Beneath the hill

Speaker 47:01

Uh

Presenter7:01

And up until

Presenter7:05

That was Iron and Wine and the Trapeze Swinger. So Matthew Barrs in the UK has, as we all know, voted to leave the EU amid the many questions that are being asked, amidst the political turmoil that we're suffering right now in this country. Let's talk for a moment about the special relationship.

Presenter7:24

Is it special any more? How do you think it's been affected by this vote?

Matthew Barzun7:28

It sure is still special. And I think we are best friends, as it were, as countries. And I think we did what best friends do. So before the referendum, when we were asked, President Obama said it probably most forcefully. Of course, it's up to you. But if you ask us as friends, we will tell you what we think, which was we valued a strong UK in a strong EU. And he said at this press conference back in April, someone asked him, well, what would happen if the British voters vote for Brexit? And I thought for a moment he might do that thing which I often have to do. It's like, oh, let's not engage in hypotheticals. But you know what? He didn't say that. Again, as a true friend. He said, well, look, on June 24th, if the British voters decide to leave, the special relationship will be it is unbreakable. You think about the cultural, the commercial, the emotional and intellectual connections between our countries. Those are unbreakable. And I think it's important, not unbreakable because there's some rigid thing, the opposite. They are unbreakable because they are flexible.

Presenter8:33

He also said around about that time that Britain, if they voted to exit the EU, would have to get to the back of the queue. Now I don't know about you, but I don't let my friends stand at the back of the queue. I pull them up front if they're my friends, and and I help them and I give them that advantage.

Matthew Barzun8:47

Well, I was sitting right there in the front. The tone in which it was said, there was nothing punitive about it, right? The point was, you're at the front of the queue right now, he was saying back in April, because we're doing this big trade deal with the European Union, of which you are a member. And so, far be it from him or any of us to tell Brits the art of queuing, since you all are really good at it. But the idea that, hey, if you step out of the front of the queue, by definition you're no longer at the front, and some notion that you could jump farther ahead, he just wanted to say that's not. the trend for the types of big deals we're doing these days.

Presenter9:20

You said a moment ago that you were surprised when your President plunged in and did answer the question and didn't avoid it. And there have been many instances in the last year or so when your President has done that, whether it's talking about our Prime Minister's handling of the Libyan situation, many others I could think of.

Presenter9:38

When a President shoots from the lip, when yours has, like that, you you are the guy who's left to kind of make nice and clear it up. Do you do you sometimes have your head in your hands at those moments?

Matthew Barzun9:48

Well, shoot from the lip makes it sound like he's just saying the first thing that crosses his mind. And President Obama is very thoughtful about what he says. This is what friends should do to each other, is to be honest. And I know it's something that my wife and I are in couples therapy, and she's a therapist herself, and I'm the son of a therapist. It is really important to think about what you say and to be honest. You know, that's between two people, not between two countries. But I think the same things apply. And we talk about building bridges a lot, you know, in diplomatic speak, and I think that's really good. And I thought about it the other day that building bridges is actually hard. Building walls is actually kind of easy. And President Obama is a very good bridge builder. And it requires you to know yourself, to see the other shore, and then do that third thing, which is to see yourself in the other, empathy, maybe, and then build a bridge. And that's what we're going to continue to do. And that's my.

Presenter10:42

I see Barton is why you're a diplomat answering that question like that. So let's just. I don't think that's a compliment. It really isn't. Let's just go to the music then. Tell me about your second piece. What are we going to hear?

Matthew Barzun10:44

Answering that question like that. So let's

Matthew Barzun10:48

Just go to the music.

Matthew Barzun10:52

Features this character.

Presenter10:52

Okay.

Matthew Barzun10:52

Well, um

Matthew Barzun10:54

This is Dream On by Arrowsmith. I grew up in a little town of 5,000 people called Lincoln outside of Boston. And there were no stores there or anything. And I loved music at an early age. So, and you remember back then, it was taped. So I would, you'd wait for a song to come on the radio, and then you'd rush over and hit play record. And this is one of the songs I'd always tried to go find. And then one day, after the song played, the DJ said, if you're the eighth caller that knows the answer to the question, when did Aerosmith, Arrowsmith, the name of this album, come out, you'll win tickets to go see Aerosmith. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I had the record by this point. And I flipped over the album, and it just has the date right at the bottom of the album. I didn't realize it was just a marketing promotion. I thought this was real trivia. And I knew the answer. So I called, and lo and behold, I was the eighth caller. And so I won tickets at age 11 to go see Aerosmith. And my parents had just gotten divorced, which was sort of.

Matthew Barzun11:50

disruptive, uh to say the least. So I invited my friend Craig to come along, and my dad uh volunteered to take us to the concert. So that reminds me of being eleven.

Speaker 412:05

Comes where it goes. I know Lambda Seth. You got those

Speaker 412:27

Half my love's folks with wages.

Presenter12:33

That was Dream On from Aerosmith and chosen by you, Matthew Barson, because you won those tickets. You said you were eleven at the time. It was a disruptive time because your parents were getting divorced. You were one of four kids. Can you tell me a little bit more about that time? How did you perceive it all?

Matthew Barzun12:48

Oh. I do we all have and my siblings and I are very close with one another and we all remember that morning we were told by my parents, you know, vividly, like every moment. But I think they did as you know, I mean they did a good job sort of doing all the basic things of like it's not about you, it's about us and all that kind of stuff. But it is really hard and it is I mean disruptive was probably a diplomatic choice of words. But one strange thing that happened as I reflected and listening, preparing for this show was my favorite place in the world was this little place in Cape Cod where we'd spend every summer. But it was my father's family's place, so my mom understandably didn't want to go there and my dad worked, so he would only come down on weekends. And somehow I convinced them after they got divorced to let me stay there alone when I was 11, Monday through Friday.

Presenter13:14

But the

Matthew Barzun13:38

I mean, there were sort of people who knew I was there who'd help out, but it was a really important part of my life reflecting back on it. And I learned how to cook and learned how to, as you said in your introduction, sort of having grown up in a kind of New Englandy

Presenter13:51

Yeah.

Matthew Barzun13:51

Environment to really open up and ask other people for help. So it really started an early pattern of reaching out in new ways.

Presenter13:59

And tell me about this rather fascinating

Matthew Barzun14:01

man, you your your grandfather? His name was Jacques Barzin, and he lived until one hundred and four years old, and he died a few years ago, and he was a really important person in my life.

Presenter14:13

And what was his profession? What did he do?

Matthew Barzun14:15

He was a historian. He was provost at Columbia University and he wrote something like 40 books. And he was the only child born in an artist's salon in Paris. So he grew up with a Polinaire and Cocteau and Verlaine and Glaz. And he was a great letter writer. We would write letters to each other and I would send him papers from high school and university and he would give them line edits after the fact. We had a lovely relationship.

Presenter14:29

It's probably very land.

Presenter14:41

And what would your family talk about over dinner? I mean, you know, I said I was s slightly cheekily in the introduction, you know, no politics and and no religion and let's not talk about money. Is that true? Did they observe?

Presenter14:50

In family get-togethers, were they quite formal and proper?

Matthew Barzun14:55

It w I mean, I was trying to remember, but I actually cannot remember one meal with my mother and father and my siblings all sitting around the table together.

Presenter15:05

Is that because the meals would have tended to be had by the children separately with maybe a housekeeper?

Matthew Barzun15:08

Yeah, we had a great babysitter named Polly and she would feed us Polly Toast, which was white bread toasted with um basically ketchup and American cheese melted. I mean we loved it. With oregano on top which made it sort of fancy. One of your five a day, right?

Presenter15:09

And the f it's great.

Presenter15:11

And Polly

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With a rec

Presenter15:23

There. Let's go to your next piece of music then. We're going to hear your third. Tell me about this, Matthew.

Matthew Barzun15:28

This is Galaxy 500 covering the great Joy Division New Order song Ceremony. And I played this song over and over and over again. I left halfway through university and went to South Africa, took time away, which I know made a big difference. I'm still kind of reflecting on how my time in South Africa changed me, but it was, I think, really healthy for me to just get out of that little world to live in Cape Town for a year and teach at a university there. And I'm at a cassette of this.

Speaker 416:00

This is why you've been son of me. But all a different story. Over time, the wheels are turning. Turn again, the turn towards this time. All she asks is the strength to hold me.

Speaker 416:22

They gave the same old story.

Speaker 416:26

Don't travel somewhere

Presenter16:36

That was Galaxy 500 with ceremony. So Matthew Barson, before you got into w what I would characterize, you know, diplomacy, politics with a small P, you spent a good amount of very productive, it has to be said, very successful time in business, broadly across the tech sector. What was it that you learned in business that you were able to translate once you started to dip your toe into politics and fundraising?

Matthew Barzun17:00

Well, I had this wonderful experience. I got hired out of university to be the fourth employee at this company called CNET. This is 1993. And I remember telling my mother that I was going to work for an Internet company. And I mean, she was not alone in saying, What's the Internet? But it was really online magazines was our business. So we were competing against the big computer magazines that had hundreds of people in white lab coats. And we couldn't possibly compete with that. So we did things like we asked people who actually bought the laptop what they thought of it.

Matthew Barzun17:31

Not letters to the editor, which is how a magazine did it. We're like, well, you own the thing. Did the battery last from San Francisco to Boston when you flew? I mean, now user reviews are ubiquitous, and lots of companies really took it much farther than we did. But those early learnings of opening up and asking others was really powerful, especially if you have no other choice.

Presenter17:49

In two thousand four then, I I understand you were you were in the crowd for Barack Obama's speech at the convention at the Democratic Convention in Boston famously. This was where he said there are no red states or blue states, but just United States. As as you sat or indeed stood in the audience to listen to that speech, what did you think about this person, Barack Obama?

Matthew Barzun18:02

Is it

Matthew Barzun18:08

My distinct memory of that speech, I was there with my wife, Brooke, wasn't thinking at all. It was feeling. I mean, there were tears streaming down my cheeks and hers and everyone we could see in that hall that day. So it's really a feeling more than a thought. I mean, I'm sure I was also thinking, wow, that guy's a good speaker. He connected with everyone and the millions of people who watched him on TV that night. I mean, if you ask people when you do focus groups, and I've got to listen to some of them on the campaign, I mean, that speech and that quote you just mentioned usually comes up first with almost everybody, for good reason.

Presenter18:43

Let's stop for some music, Matthew Barson. Tell me about our fourth disc.

Matthew Barzun18:48

I wanted to pick a song that reminded me of my time working for President Obama, especially on his two campaigns. But because President Obama was here in London in April, and he arrived the day that Prince died, and I had a chance to play Prince's 1999 album with the President at our place in London, I felt that retroactively I would declare that a campaign song. And so I picked out Delirious. But also my kids were looking down this list and said, you know, would it kill you to have a happy song? And this is a happy song to me.

Speaker 419:21

I get deliverance never on me

Speaker 419:27

Use our self-control, baby jumpers, just to use

Speaker 419:32

Wheels get locked in place The screw look on my face

Speaker 419:37

When it comes to making a pass, pretty mama, I just can't wait to rest, cause I get delirious.

Speaker 419:47

Seriously.

Presenter19:52

That was Prince and Delirious. Matthew Barson, let's talk for a moment about. It's called low-dollar fundraising. And it is when, as I mentioned in the introduction, it's when instead of going to the few for a lot of cash, you go to a lot of people for a few dollars. And I know you probably will say, well, it's me and lots of other people, but actually the story of how you came up with the idea.

Presenter20:13

is a pretty fascinating one. Tell me about the UPS guy.

Matthew Barzun20:16

Well, what had been done before was asking people for small amounts of money online. President Obama had come to Louisville, which is my adopted home city, before he ran for president for a fundraiser. And I asked him if he would be willing to do something for free because, you know, people had heard that great speech at the convention and there was rumors he might run for president. And I said, you know, it's great to have someone like you come to Louisville. He said, sure, I'll do it. And anyway, we had 5,000 people show up in our minor league baseball park, which is a big number for our city. And I think he was kind of blown away by how many people there were and the energy that day. And he was supposed to speak for six minutes, and I think he spoke for about 45. So then he ends up running for president, and he calls and asks me if I would like to help him. And I said, absolutely. And I said, well, please come back. And then I thought to myself, well, how many of those 5,000 people who went for free would be willing to invest in the campaign? I didn't know, but I figured the only way to find out was to ask. And so we reached out, and there was this wonderful guy who worked at the UPS store. I don't know what the equivalent would be here. We have those tourists. Do you have those? Yeah, we do. Like DHL and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, okay. So that kind of thing. And I said, do you think you could go out and sell some tickets if we can get Obama here? And he said, I don't know. Maybe. I'll try. And he came back the next item and he's like, yeah, I did it. Can I have 30 more? And I was like, sure. So I just kept reaching out to a bunch of people under the age of 30. I think it was a new case. And it just pushed me to how much are these tickets? I think it was $20. And then.

Presenter21:19

Yeah, we have those people.

Presenter21:22

Yeah, okay.

Presenter21:38

And it just brings me to get through.

Matthew Barzun21:43

I got a call from Chicago headquarters saying, good news and bad news. We are coming on February 27th, and we're going to do that high dollar event, but we're canceling the low dollar one. And I was absolutely devastated. And I was moping around, and my lovely wife said,

Matthew Barzun22:00

Matthew, you got to get out of here. Fly to Chicago and make your case because you're miserable to be around now. And if that campaign doesn't stand for that, it's probably not something you want to throw yourself into. So I took her advice. I went up there, made my case, and they still said no. This was the campaign manager, David Pluff, a wonderful friend. And then he's like, Matthew, you look really, really depressed. And I was like, I kind of am. And I didn't want to be pushy. I mean, there's so many pushy people in politics. And I was just determined not to be another one. So I sort of resigned to it. And he said, and I said, well, I'm depressed. And I'm also just logistically trying to figure out how to give back 3,200 tickets. And he's like, what? And I said, yeah, we've sold 3,200 tickets at 20. He's like, oh my gosh, go for it.

Presenter22:43

How do you think that changed the voters' relationship with the democratic process?

Matthew Barzun22:49

Well, they're investing in it. And if you've invested twenty dollars, you might try to encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same. And that really encouraged more people to get involved. And I think that's a good thing. We're going to have some more music now.

Presenter23:02

Method.

Matthew Barzun23:02

That's okay.

Presenter23:02

Tell me about this. What are we gonna hear? It's your fifth.

Matthew Barzun23:05

Okay, this is Johnny Cash covering a song called I See a Darkness written by Will Oldham, who is an amazing musician from Louisville, Kentucky. And Will was the first performer we invited when we were in Sweden. He was the first person to say yes to, and we've now done a lot of them, as you mentioned, of inviting talented musical artists into our home to share their gifts with other people.

Speaker 323:29

I see your darkness And that I see your darkness Did you know how much I love you? Here's a hope that somehow you

Speaker 323:42

Can save me from this darkness.

Speaker 323:52

Well, I hope that some day, buddy.

Speaker 323:56

We have peace in our lives.

Presenter23:59

Johnny Cash, I See a Darkness. Matthew Barton, I want to talk a little more now about the political landscape. Of course, I mean, you know, the Rolling News commentators are not the people who long term will judge President Obama's political legacy and and its worth or not. What do you think?

Presenter24:19

His legacy will be, and what do you say to those parts of America who say, you know what, hope and change seem a far way off when I look at my day-to-day life right now?

Matthew Barzun24:29

I think he will.

Matthew Barzun24:35

Kiercely, this one's hard because I feel myself getting into, like I have said, hard politics, you think? Yeah, well, no, I mean, I can I can like I have it all committed.

Matthew Barzun24:44

To memory. And I sort of start to laundry list these things, which I don't really want to do on your program. Okay. But the part that I focus the most on is: and there was this wonderful moment when he was in London and he took time out to be with members of our Young Leaders UK group and said, Ask me anything. And there was a young woman who asked him about what advice he would have about how to make change happen. And you could tell a lot of people in the room were thinking, is it being a great speaker or is it having perseverance and courage? And he has both those things at a high level. But he said, you know what? What he reflected on his own strengths and what he was encouraging everyone in that room to do was be predisposed to see the power in other people. Predisposed to see the power in other people. That's how he reflected on his success, and he was encouraging all these young British future leaders to do the same. And I love that because it's humble and it's hard and it accounts for lots of why he's been successful.

Presenter25:42

And you spoke about seeing him in 2004 speak at the Democratic Conference, and you said you weren't thinking you were feeling.

Presenter25:49

Because he had authenticity.

Presenter25:53

A lot of Americans right now seem to be connecting with Donald Trump's authenticity.

Presenter25:59

What kind of president do you think he would make?

Matthew Barzun26:02

Oh dear, I do have to be sort of careful and diplomatic because I'm not supposed to weigh into politics back home in this role because there is an important tradition of I'm not a Democratic ambassador or a Republican ambassador. I mean my politics are not hard to guess based on who appointed me. I mean I broke from this rule a few months ago after comments were made back home saying that we're not going to allow Muslims or a proposal that we wouldn't allow Muslims in America and I felt I had to break from the rule to say that that is unconstitutional.

Presenter26:13

Yeah.

Matthew Barzun26:30

Un-American.

Matthew Barzun26:32

Just plain wrong.

Presenter26:33

Let's have some more music, Matthew Barson. We're going to hear your sixth now. Tell me about this. Why have you chosen it, and what is it?

Matthew Barzun26:34

Arsenal.

Matthew Barzun26:38

Uh

Matthew Barzun26:38

Okay, this is a fun one. This is the state I am in off of Belle and Sebastian, a great Glasgow band. And I'm picking it because my life partner, my wife Brooke, I met on a blind date in San Francisco. And I thought it went pretty well. But she later revealed to me that the day after she was thinking, oh, he's nice. Who can I set him up with? But I persevered. And then things kind of got going in a good direction. But I made her a mixtape. And the name of my first mixtape for my now wife was The State I Am In. And I thought this was kind of a cute way of saying the state I am in is in love with you.

Speaker 426:48

Mm.

Speaker 427:16

Got married in a rush to save her kid from being devoted now she's in love

Speaker 427:25

Oh, I was so touched.

Speaker 427:28

I was moved to kick the crunches from my boyfriend.

Speaker 427:36

She was not impressed, cause I girded her on the Sabbath.

Speaker 427:42

I want to confess.

Speaker 427:46

When she saw the funny side of it.

Presenter27:49

Balan Sebastian and the state I'm in. So Matthew Barzan, a lot of people who've been ambassadors to this country, I think it's it's five ambassadors have gone on to have great political ambition and have gone on to realize that political ambition as president of their country. Do you yourself have political ambition beyond? Are you modelling yourself as maybe a future

Matthew Barzun28:10

Maybe a future leader of the free world. No, indeed. I think if you look at those five, and they're amazing, I think they all happened before 1856. So I think it's important to put that into the future. Detail, detail. Tell us about your next disc, Ambassador. It's your sevenths. I had so many different versions of my eight songs for you. It's sort of embarrassing. But Every Understand actually survived because it's a Bob Dylan song covered by Emmy Lou Harris. And this is a song that my wife and I listened to when we drove for what we thought would be a holiday right before she gave birth to twins, except the twins came early at 28 weeks while we were on vacation. It was really intense, and they were just a little over two pounds, and they were tiny, and we had these amazing nurses and doctors who saved their little babies' lives, and they're 14 years old now and doing great. And so they were in the hospital for three months. And so I'd listen to it a lot, going to the hospital to go see them. And so it's just a beautiful song. And there's a line in it that says, sometimes I turn and there's someone there. Sometime it's only me. And I imagine on the island I will want to turn and imagine my wife, my kids there with me and they won't be and it really will be lonely.

Presenter28:11

The three world

Presenter28:20

Deep

Speaker 429:23

I hear the ancient footsteps like the ocean of the sea.

Speaker 429:31

Sometimes I do there's some wonder, other times it's only

Speaker 429:40

I am hanging in the belly

Speaker 429:45

Of a perfect finish

Speaker 429:49

Like every sparrow fall

Speaker 429:54

Like every friends

Presenter29:57

That was Emilou Harris and every grain of sand. Um so Matthew Barson, you are likely to finish here in uh January coming up, when President Obama's Presidency ends.

Presenter30:08

What have you learned about Britain and the British?

Matthew Barzun30:11

Oh, I have had, my whole family has had the most wonderful time here. I love British humor. Like many Americans, I watch lots of British television. I mean, grew up on Monty Python. Never understood Benny Hill. The thick of it is one of my favorite shows of all time. I think the hardest thing to adjust to has been British understatement. It's hard in a job as a diplomat because I think the American tendency is to kind of pile on the praise. And I've noticed that to my British friends, they're sort of discounting it in equal measure when I try to do that. I mean, London is magic. I love getting out to Leeds and Leicester and Glasgow and, you know, all sorts of cities that aren't London because 87% of British people don't live in London. And we'll be moving back to this wonderful city that we call home of Louisville, Kentucky, which is, and nobody knows this, twinned with Leeds. So I tell my British friends, it's kind of like moving to Leeds.

Presenter31:04

You're right, nobody knows that.

Matthew Barzun31:05

Tell me then about your final piece of music. So this is what I am playing the most right now. It's a really cool story about this wonderful musician and producer, T-Bone Burnett, working with Bob Dylan, found old songs that Bob Dylan had written at that time, but the music had never been written. And so he said, why don't you assemble some musicians? And this is a wonderful US-UK story because you have Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford on the British side, and then you've got Jim James and Rhianna Giddens from North Carolina. I'm forgetting a few, sorry. Who come together and they each get to pick the lyrics that they like most and then try to write a song together. And this is one that Marcus Mumford did. And it's called When I Get My Hands on You. And there's a great line in it that I think will be very important as I miss my wife on this desert island. And the line is, and now you'll know everywhere on earth you'll go. You'll have me as your man.

Speaker 432:00

Now you know.

Speaker 432:04

Everywhere on earth you go, you're gonna have me as your man, baby.

Speaker 432:21

When I get my hands on you

Speaker 432:29

Gonna make you carry me.

Presenter32:34

When I get my hands on you from the new basement tapes. Um so Ambassador Matthew Barson, this is the time when I do the cruelest of things. I cast you away to be all alone on this desert island. But I will give you some things as well as the eight discs to make life a little bit uh more bearable. We we will give you uh the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and one other book to take. What is your

Matthew Barzun32:43

That's what time is.

Matthew Barzun32:52

Thank you.

Matthew Barzun32:56

What's your other book going to be? My book is going to be From Dawn to Decadence, written by my grandfather, Jacques Barzin. I think it's 800 pages long. And it traces Western civilization from 1500 to the present. And as you can tell by the title, Decadence, he wasn't overly optimistic about where things were headed. But actually, the last chapter talks about something new is going to come. So there'll be plenty to read and reflect on.

Presenter33:20

And to soften the blow a little further, you also get to take a luxury isom. What's your luxury going to be?

Matthew Barzun33:26

Well, I know there are strict rules, so I want to make sure because I really want this one thing, and I promise you that it is not used for escaping. My number one favorite thing to do is kite surfing. So that requires a kite, a harness, and a kite board. So kite surfing kit? I'm going to give you the kite surfing.

Presenter33:43

Equipment, but I'm going to give you a kind of bungee rope that is permanently tied to this great palm tree that we have on the island, and therefore you cannot get away, but you can use it.

Matthew Barzun33:54

Thank you for letting me get away with that technicality. This is really good.

Presenter33:56

This is

Presenter33:58

And finally, then, if you could only save one of these disks from the waves, which one, I wonder, would it be?

Matthew Barzun34:03

The disc I would save is Emmy Lou Harris covering Bob Dylan's Every Grain of Sand.

Presenter34:10

It's yours. Ambassador Matthew Barson, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Matthew Barzun34:15

Well, thank you for letting me be here. What a joy.

Presenter34:58

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.