So this was meant to be the last week of Covid Island Discs but sadly the government has delayed the final relaxation of lockdown restrictions due to the delta variant of Covid-19 which is currently spreading rapidly in the UK population.

The two videos I recommend watching this week is "Park life" by Blur and "Twilight" from ELO with the latter video getting my vote for best video of the week. I can't quite decide if this is because the music itself is so spacey or if the visuals are also quite attractive to watch as you see a full orchestra perform this amazing rock technofunk piece of music. While the ELO video has some great lighting effects, the Park life video is much more down to earth and has a comical feel to match the lyrics of the song.

It will quickly dawn on people as I share my list over the next few weeks that I am still mostly stuck in the 20th century in terms of my music. So just to demonstrate that I have just about managed to make it into the 21st century with some of the music I listen to, this is a song released in 2003 (thought it was later than that).

From the time I was born until I left to come to England in 1992, I used to spend every Easter at Barrington Guest house. This was such a lovely holiday for a special set of families who would converge on the guest house every year for the Easter break. Over the years, these same families became great friends as we enjoyed each other's company. During the Easter break we would walk together in some of most beautiful rain forest in the world, ride horses, feed Rosellas that would eat out of your hand or land on your head, compete in a Davis cup tennis tournament, swim in crystal clear rivers (sliding down a natural rock face slippery dip) and attend one of the most amazing country Saturday bush dances complete with a diagonal couple "Strip the Willow" spin. The older teenagers and twenty somethings would then commandeer a tour bus after the dance and sing songs like "American Pie" until the early hours of the morning. It truly gave me many of the most memorable and enjoyable times in my life.

Yet it was always a downer when the holiday was over and we had returned to Sydney. Although there wasn't much sand at Barrington, sometimes you would find something (say mud or a bloody sock from an encounter with a leech) on your shoes that would make you think, "wow I wish I was back there". Over the years I wrote many silly lyrics to famous tunes sometime to perform at school formals or house parties. Yet the comedown from Barrington one year was enough for me to write my own song (I have only ever written two proper songs in my life) which I guess was along similar lines to this Dido classic. For what it is worth, my chorus went: "it's a matter of time, that drives us fast, pushing our future into the past, a holiday with you, passes too soon, leaving us to steal memories while staring at our room."

There is a sad postscript to this story. In 2006 Helen and I were booked into Barrington Guest House. I drove excitedly to the spot pulling up and getting out of the car to be greeted by someone. The conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi we are here to stay at Barrington"
Bemused person: "you not staying here mate"
Me (a little confused): "why?"
Person: "It burnt down last night"

Why did I not see that? Well the outer shell of the guest house was still standing (I now understand the full meaning of the term when they say a house has been gutted). It was only when you got closer you could see the smouldering smoke rising from the interior. Such a tragedy because the guest house was built sometime early in the 20th century which made it a valuable historical artefact by Australian standards.

Such a beautiful song with lovely guitar backing. The song is particularly sad because Eric Clapton wrote it about his 4 year old son who was killed when he fell out of a window from a 53^rd floor tower block. His chorus reminds me of the bible verse Revelation 21:4: "he will wipe every tear from their eyes."

The video clip is also poignant because it really traces the story of the relational pain and tension that must have occurred in Clapton's marriage after their son had died due to that dreadful accident. "I can imagine the constant if only you or I had done ..." The "you" of course would always carry a tinge of accusation - how could it not? Sometimes it feels life is just too horribly painful.

Funny how after so many weeks of posting I have yet to put a song by the band America. I think this is one of their best songs. One lyric in this song contains a very clever use of the nightmarish number of homophones that exist in the English language, which always trip people like me up who are not strong spellers, is this lovely line:

"I've been one poor correspondent, I've been two, too hard to find"

This song seems strangely appropriate to finish off this week given the incredible scenes we experienced last week with the storming of the US Capitol building by Trump insurrectionists. We are certainly living in history making times but as Billy Joel says "we didn't start the fire, but we're trying to fight it" with pretty much zero success. This song, like American Pie is an extended lyrical piece containing the cataloguing of world history verse by verse.

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

So last week I shared a classic hit from the 70s from the US band Dr Hook. This is another one of their not so well known song that tells an interesting story about a guy who has lost the love of his life, Sylvia. As he argues over the phone with her mother (Mrs Avery) about whether he can speak to her so he can "tell her goodbye", each verse slowly unfolds the story of Sylvia moving on in her life marrying a guy from down Galveston way.

Meanwhile as he continues to plead with her non-budging mother, the operator keeps coming on the line saying: "and the operator says 40c more for the next three minutes please". As you can guess if you have read some of this blog, this song really appeals to me because of the rich lyrical content.

Wow I am surprised I have got to day 352 before I finally cited this song. As I have written on several occasions I love songs that are musically intense and this one is right up there. A classic Police song. Sting of course at one point was a school teacher so I sometimes wonder if this song might be a little bit autobiographical?