Week 44 – Think Bensonium

Day 308: Mr Jones, Counting Crows

Roderick Benson — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

First appearance of this band on Covid Island Discs. This of course is a pretty classic rock tune so deserves its place in my playlist. I guess this song captures the “fairytales” that male friends tell each other about pretty woman who may actually fancy them and how one day they will end up being “never lonely”.

Day 307: One of us, Joan Osborne

Roderick Benson — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This song came out in 1995 and is rather ironic because if you’re a Christian, you believe that God really did become one of us in the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth born circa 4 BC in Bethlehem. Joan Osborne imagines that if God was one of us, we would have to believe but, in reality, we know what happened to the historical Jesus so her surmise is off the mark somewhat if indeed Jesus was the incarnation of the creator of our universe.

Day 306: Be good Johnny, Men at Work

Roderick Benson — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Men at work are probably known in most countries as a one hit wonder band with their most famous song being Down Under (Covid Island Discs day 30).

However in Australia they did have other hits, and this was one of them.

Day 305: Dancing to Jailhouse Rock, Elvis Presley

Roderick Benson — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Haven’t as yet had a song from the man they called the king of rock and roll so I guess a song from him is long overdue. This is probably my favourite Elvis Presley song.

Day 304: Like Wow Wipeout, Hoodoo Gurus

Roderick Benson — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Another great song from a great Aussie band. A joyous song celebrating young love.

Day 303: Mad hatter, Melanie Martinez

Roderick Benson — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Another psychedelic song by Melanie. The song in this video strangely does not start until 1 minute 8 seconds into the video. A very 21^st century song.

Day 302: Road to nowhere, Talking Heads

Roderick Benson — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Time for another song from Talking Heads. Perhaps in the covid year of 2020 many felt like life was in some sort of suspended animation as everything appeared to be put in hold. Obviously we had hoped that life would be returning to normal by the time we got to 2021 but sadly for the UK it looks like we shall remain in lockdown for sometime yet given the number of new covid infections each day.

The harsh truth is that things in the UK can only start to normalise once we begin to achieve some form of herd immunity through a mass vaccination program.