1971 – Think Bensonium

Day 390: Tiny Dancer, Elton John

Roderick Benson — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 23:00:54 +0000

This song always reminds me of the most amazing Elton John concert I attended with a good friend all the way back in 1986. This was a really special concert where Elton teamed up with the Melbourne Symphonic Orchestra. One of the songs that really stuck in my mind was this classic from the album Madman Across the Water. I was quite surprised to find an official music video for this song which appears to only be published in 2017. Anyway, the official video’s soundtrack is of the original recording although I assume it has been remastered to improve the audio quality.

Day 346: Riders on the Storm, The Doors

Roderick Benson — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:46 +0000

Wow can’t believe I got all the way to day 346 without a Doors song. I guess this is probably one of their most famous singles. Citing a Doors classic reminds me of a Billy Joel Classic which will be the subject of tomorrow’s Covid Island Disc.

Day 277: Happy Xmas (The war is over), John Lennon

Roderick Benson — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So I’m not a great fan of lots of Christmas hits produced by rock stars but I have always thought this one from John Lennon is pretty good although not particularly a cheerful Christmas ditty.

Day 274: Song for Dylan, David Bowie

Roderick Benson — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I ended last week’s Covid Island Discs with another song from Bob Dylan. This reminded me of a David Bowie song which is a tribute to Dylan’s musical genius. Really think the lines below that Bowie penned about Dylan are quite appropriate.

About a strange young man called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
Some words had truthful vengeance
That could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

Day 238: Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who

Roderick Benson — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hope this sentiment holds for the USA and that they are never fooled again by a charlatan like Trump. For that matter, I also hope that our Trump-like prime minister’s time is also short and we can finally rid ourselves of our aberrant nationalistic hard right wing Conservative Party.

Day 215: Vincent, Don McLean

Roderick Benson — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 23:00:00 +0000

At the very beginning of Covid Island Discs (Day 3 in fact) I posted the song Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits. The back story to that song was that in year 11 we had to write an essay on our two favourite rock songs and analyse their lyrics (you can read about it here). However, our English teacher, who set us the writing task at the time (her name was Mrs Jackson), also presented her two favourite songs and this was one of them.

After she presented this very sad song, one to the guys in the class said “What’s all this about is this singer gay or something?” Needless to say this comment reduced a class of young 17 year old boys to fits of laughter much to the chagrin of our poor long suffering English teacher.

Day 181: You’ve got a friend, James Taylor

Roderick Benson — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 23:00:00 +0000

This song is actually another Carol King classic which also appeared on her Tapestry album (see yesteday’s post). However, I also really like Jame’s Taylor’s version of the song. In this post I have also included Carol King’s version as well.

James Taylor

Carol King

Day 180: Tapestry by Carol King

Roderick Benson — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 23:00:00 +0000

I am a little surprised I have not included a Carol King song in my collection yet. I wanted to find a live performance of her song Tapestry because once again I find the lyrics of this song more interesting than some of her other classics.

However, it is quite hard to find a clip of Youtube with her performing this song as it is not as famous as her other works even though her best selling album was named after this song. Finally I found this Youtube clip which contains a little bit of Carol King’s life history at the end of it.

Day 161: Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones

Roderick Benson — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:54:56 +0000

I guess a hit from the The rolling stones is long overdue although I must confess they are not one of my favourite bands. What song to choose? Well given my book The Wormwood Deceptions is all about how the devil uses his lies to entrap humanity this tune seems to be the most appropriate.

Day 133: Maggie May, Rod Stewart

Roderick Benson — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:09:26 +0000

“All you did was wreck my bed and in the morning kicked me the head.” Such romantic lyrics. This is a live version of the song which begins with a slower melody than the origin album version. Another cool thing about this version is having Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones playing a 6 sting acoustic.