So this week there are some great videos in my music list. Ones which are really worth checking out are:

1. I send a message, INXS
2. Come as you are, Nirvana
3. And she was, Talking Heads
4. Call me when you're sober, Evanescence

All the videos are great for different reasons. The INXS video has a cute little black toy robot juxtaposed into a Japanese Geisha girl's hangout, the Nirvana song has the iconic baby in the water with the dollar bill which of course was the album cover to Never Mind. The Talking Heads video is classic Talking Heads with surreal cartoon paper cut out images in the same genre as the Monty Python animated sequences and, as usual, the Evanescence "Call me when you're sober" song is just completely intense both musically and visually.

Yet when you have finished looking at this list, you might as well also check out the Cold Chisel video "Forever now" and Australian Crawl's "Reckless" as these two videos are also very visually appealing: the former with the drummer keeping time on café cutlery while the latter has car indicators in time with the strong beat of the song. I guess if I had to choose one video that was the best out of this strong set, I would probably go with "I Send a message" (mainly because of the robot) although "Call me when you're sober" is also at the top of this list.

So today I watched a very interesting video analysis of a song by the Beatles called A Northern Song. Post Covid Island Discs now usually records the death of famous musicians and of course poor old George Harrison passed away many years before the Covid-19 pandemic. So I guess this post is in memorandum to George Harrison even if he did pass away so many years before this website was even born. Yet there appears to be so much more to this song of Harrison's than meets the eye as explained by James Hargreaves in his video which is also included under the Beatles Anthrology recording of Harrison's clever song which I think, as Hargreaves argues, is a passive-aggressive dig at the way McCartney and Lennon treated him as an inferior member of the Beatles.

After watching Hargreaves excellent analysis of the Harrison's song, along with his detailing of the complicated tensions that existed between the Beatles in the late 60s, it became obvious that the band was always in trouble and it was only a matter of time before the fab four would go their separate ways. Hargreaves analysis challenges the commonly held idea that the breakup of the band was solely down to Yoko entering the scene as clearly relational tensions in the Beatles were not just confined to John and Paul.

A less known version but better version (in my opinion) of the song before Lennon and McCartney fell into a possible trap set by Harrison (see Hargreaves analysis below).

Analysis of the song and its meaning by James Hargreaves

The mainstream version of the song as first published on the Yellow Submarine Album

Someone recently quoted these lines from this song: "Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest." It was in reference to the strange phenomenon of those who hear and witness Trump's outrageous behaviour and still want him to be their leader. If I'm honest the fact that Trump still received around 70 million votes in the recent US Presidential election I find deeply troubling. I said to my wife you do not expect to have to reevaluate your understanding of humanity when you are in your 50s and yet this is where I now find myself. I have to dismiss the idea that someone as dysfunctional as Trump will be rejected by the vast majority of the population. Yes they will be rejected by the majority in the mathematical sense (> 50%) yet that majority is horrifyingly still relatively slim and it is this lesson which is a bitter truth to learn so late in life.

Never have I wanted the main lyric of this song to be true as in 2020. I so much hope and pray that the wicked spell of far right politics is broken in 2021. So tired of the Trump's, Putin's and Johnson's of this world.

Yesterday I shared the song Heaven by Bryan Adams which I first heard at the tender age of 19. As I mused over the memories of that song, the fact I was 19 reminded me of another great song by the Aussie band Redgum. This song strongly reminds me of the other Anzac song Waltzing Matilda (see Covid Island Discs Day 36) which recalls the origin of Anzac day when Australian forces failed to take Anzac Cove in the Gallipolli campaign of 1915-1916.

In contrast this song tells of a much more recent conflict for the Australian armed forces and that was the terrible Vietnam conflict which left so many young me both physically and psychologically broken; the latter so aptly captured in the song's lines:

And can you tell me doctor why I still can't get to sleep.
And why the channel 7 chopper chills me to my feet.
And what's this rash that comes and goes can you tell me what it means.
God help me! I was only 19

Wow we've made it to week 50. It is incredible to think that in the UK we have pretty much been in some form of lockdown now for nearly a whole year. OK so here goes: I have resisted Taylor Swift for long enough. Although she is a bit of mega star, I must confess I'm not a great fan of most of her music perhaps it is her very strong country American accent that comes across in all her music (not sure really). Songs like "Teardrops on my guitar" feel just too easy to parody ("Dreeeew loooks aaat meee .. Dreew taalks tooo me, I laugh because heeees sooooo foonny"). However Love Story is one song that I can listen to. Won't say it is at the top of my playlist but it is a fairly decent song.

Given I seem to be in a more country music theme this week, I think it is time for another Eagles classic. This was the title song their hit album of that name released all the way back in 1975.

A new hit from Coldplay. Quite a catchy song with a very funky video sequence to go with the music.