So this week there are no major video productions so nothing that stands out visually. If I was going to suggest just two video in this week's list that are worth watching then I would go with "Death Defying" by the Hoodoo Gurus and Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix. The former because it is just a brilliant song and the later for the cool hippy audience enjoying Hendrix amazing guitaring.

Such a beautiful song this time augmented with a nice duet from Sheryl Crow. The background to the story is equally interesting. From memory I thought it was about one of his friends who took her own life but apparently each verse is about something different. This is what the npr.org website said about the song.

Taylor wrote "Fire and Rain" in 1968. The song has three verses. One is about a friend who committed suicide, another is about Taylor's addiction to heroin, the third refers to a mental hospital and a band Taylor started called The Flying Machine. Each verse is followed by the same chorus, `I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you again.' James Taylor told me he can't stand to hear his songs on the radio. He dives for the dial if "Fire and Rain" comes on. But it remains a song he likes to sing and one that audiences always wait for.

From John Lennon back to the Beatles. I guess only a band is great as them could get away with such a long lead out in a rock song. The blurb under this Youtube video clip is an interesting read and reproduced below.

"Hey Jude topped the charts in Britain for two weeks and for 9 weeks in America, where it became The Beatles longest-running No.1 in the US singles chart as well as the single with the longest running time.

The Beatles did not record their promotional film until Hey Jude had been on sale in America for a week. They returned to Twickenham Film Studio, using director Michael Lindsay-Hogg who had worked with them on Paperback Writer and Rain. Earlier still, Lindsay-Hogg had directed episodes of Ready Steady Go! And a few months after the film for Hey Jude he made The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV special that featured John and Yoko but wouldn’t be shown until 1996.

To help with the filming an audience of around 300 local people, as well as some of the fans that gathered regularly outside Abbey Road Studios were brought in for the song’s finale. Their presence had an unlikely upside for The Beatles in their long-running saga with the Musicians’ Union in that the MU were fooled into believing the band were playing live, when in fact they were miming for the vast majority of the song. Paul, however, sang live throughout the song.

The video was first broadcast on David Frost’s Frost On Sunday show, four days after it was filmed. At that point transmission was in black and white although the promo was originally shot in colour. It was first aired in America a month later on 6 October 1968, on The Smotheres Brothers Comedy Hour."

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

Well it is my lovely wife's birthday today and I have the perfect song for this day. "Happy Birthday Helen" by Things of Stone and Wood. Sadly, the audio quality of this video is very poor so I have put two versions of the song one so you can see the Aussie band members of Things of Stone and Wood performing, the other so you can hear the song with decent sound quality. It is always gratifying when one can find the perfect song for an occasion (slightly more aligned than the song I chose for our 20^th wedding anniversary (Covid Island Discs Day 26) 😀.

Video of the band performing but poor sound quality

Audio of song with no video

I discovered this band when filling in Covid Island Discs the missing years. The first song of theirs I cited back on day 322 was The Ghost Inside. The lyrics of this song fitted a science fiction theme about a young woman who travels to a distant planet to find her dream vacation. Sadly however, when she gets there, she finds the planet is not what she thought it would be. This second song of theirs also follows a similar science fiction narrative again involving people and spaceships. Another very interesting video visually to accompany a song which is also is quite interesting lyrically.

Another very old classic from Janis Ian. This is the second time she has appeared on Covid Island Discs.

This one of the Police's strangest songs. I cite this song straight after yesterday's song by Dido Life for Rent because apparently it is about a guy submitting to his girlfriend in a relationship but in the final verse he turns the tables on her and she becomes wrapped around his finger. Again these songs capture the more adversarial aspect of boy/girl relationships where both parties are trying to establish dominance over the other rather than acting in love which ideally looks to putting the other person's interests first.