So this week my top two videos are:

1. There's your trouble, Dixie Chicks
2. Prettiest Eyes, The Beautiful South

I like the Dixie Chick video because of the clever use of a kaleidoscope effect. However my favourite video this week is Prettiest Eyes by The Beautiful South. I like the barbershop scene although the razor cut shave while Paul Heaton sings the song is a little bit disconcerting. I also like the very low colour temperature lighting that is used in the video and the various shots of the band singing and playing guitar.

Another beautiful song that might make you feel a little melancholy on Good Friday 2022. I love this solo by Dolores and her absolutely incredible voice with that wonderful Irish accent. Sadly, the older you get the more death you must experience and the more folk you know who are no longer with us. Sadly, like so many amazing musical talents, Dolores left us way too young and so joins the long list of rock musicians who will never release a new song in 2022. The title of this song also seems poignant given we miss her now she's gone. RIP Dolores.

A little bit of alternative British music

So the last song of Kim Wilde's I shared was a comical Christmas song: Rockin' around the Christmas tree a duet between her and the late great comedian Mel Smith. This song is at the opposite end of the spectrum and captures one of the darkest moments of US history when Nixon ordered the carpet bombing of Cambodia to try and break the stalemate in the Vietnam war as the Viet Cong were using the Eastern part of this neutral country as a place of refuge.

Sadly, the unintended consequence of this military action was the rise of Khmer Rouge which in 1970 resulted in what is described in the Wiki article as follows:

By late March 1970, Cambodia had descended into anarchy as Karnow noted: Rival Cambodian gangs were hacking each other to pieces, in some instances celebrating their prowess by eating the hearts and livers of their victims. The North Vietnamese response was swift, they began directly supplying large amounts of weapons and advisors to the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia plunged into civil war. Lon Nol saw Cambodia's population of 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese as possible hostages to prevent PAVN attacks and ordered their roundup and internment. One hundred and forty four Cambodian soldiers and civilians then unleashed a reign of terror, murdering thousands of Vietnamese civilians. Lon Nol encouraged pogroms against the Vietnamese minority and the Cambodian police took the lead in organizing the pogroms. On 15 April for example, 800 Vietnamese men had been rounded up at the village of Churi Changwar, tied together, executed, and their bodies dumped into the Mekong River. They then floated downstream into South Vietnam. Cambodia's actions were denounced by both the North and South Vietnamese governments.

As the lead singer of Midnight Oil Peter Garrett noted, Henry Kissinger (Nixon's secretary of state and defence advisor) would later be awarded a Nobel Peace prize much to the chagrin of many.

Covid Island Discs the missing years

So over the next few days I am going to publish songs that were released in years that are currently empty in my Covid Island Disc collection. Up until today, there were no songs for 2010. In order to find a song that was published in 2010 I went to The magazine and looked up the top 50 songs for 2010. The magazine rated this song at number 9. On first listening, I wasn't that impressed but the song did quickly grow on me and it has a great video to accompany the music.

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.

Although I keep up to date with my Covid Island Disc blog, I am way behind on my summary videos for each week. When recording the summary video for week 20, the artist I focussed on was Neil Young. In 2005 Neil Young had a near brush with death after a successful operation for a brain aneurysm two days later caused a bleed from his femoral artery.

This experience led him to write this very beautiful song where Young asks several questions about God's intentions for making him. I particularly like the searching verse which I think, as one get's older, is echoed by many of us whether we are Christians, other faiths or no faith at all:

Was he planning only for believers?
Or for those who just had faith?
Did he envision all wars that were fought in his name?
Did he say there was only one way to be close to him?
When God made me
When God made me

God bless him!

Wow another amazing Youtube find to open week 61 of Covid Island Discs. This is the Beatles classic While My Guitar Gently Weeps a song which nearly didn't make it onto the White album because sadly poor George was not seen as a musical equal to John and Paul. Anyway, apparently with the intervention of Eric Clapton, this song made it onto the White album.

This performance of the classic song was done in 2004 in memory of George Harrison by a group of artists who really are all rock and roll legends in their own right. I'm sure the late great George would have been proud. Enjoy!!