Difficult to pick my favourite video for week 3 but I think I will go with the Traveling Wilburys just for the sheer number of mega rockstars in the same room (all having a jam) although the David Bowie one is also pretty good.

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

So keeping to my musical thread, yesterday I posted the hit Watching the Wheels by John Lennon which appeared on his final album Double Fantasy. A little bit of rock trivia. Apparently, he was stimulated to come out of retirement and produce Double Fantasy after hearing Rock Lobster on the radio. Another great song to get you dancing around your living room with your fellow family prisoners.

PS: Why is the guitarist playing a guitar which is missing the D and G string? Perhaps he wants it to be a ukulele?

Fast forward some years

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."

Now for a video that was made before I was born. A classic Bob Dylan song from sooo long ago. The master wordsmith at work.

How many times must a man look up before he can really see the sky?
And how many ears must a man have before he can hear people cry?
And how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?
The answer my friend is blowin in the wind the answer is blowin in the wind.

Crazy band of the 80s. They have already appeared once in Covid Island Discs. This is their second appearance. Not sure why they have flow pots on their heads ????.

So this is a song that was released by Alan Parsons after 15 years of musical silence. The video of this song is also really worth watching because it really is in some ways Parson's musical autobiography. I watched this song just after preparing Parson's biography for Covid Island Discs (Week 23) and what is fascinating about the video is seeing all the important landmarks of Parson's life in the imagery of the video, including Abbey road and his past famous albums. In fact, even the very opening scene of the video has a piece of old ship paper with the words "Dark Side of the Moon" inscribed on it as this was one of the early albums Parson's helped to produce along with the iconic Beatles album, "Abbey Road", when he first went to work at Abbey road studios as a young man.

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!!