So this week the two songs that make my shortlist for the best video are:

1. Never tear us apart, INXS
2. Head over feet, Alanis Morissette

The second video is a little disconcerting because the song's lyrics is about a woman who has found the love of her life yet Alanis's facial expressions in this song convey a deep incongruence between the expected emotion of the song and the emotion she conveys in the images of this video. In some ways, you can almost that the woman in the video is suffering from some major psychological disturbance rather than being a healthy individual singing about the joys of her new romantic relationship

Thus my vote this week goes to Never tear us apart by INXS. The city that this video is filmed in is Prague which is an incredibly beautiful city and very well worth visiting if you have never been there. I also like the scene change at 1 minute 24 seconds which accompanies the line "two worlds colliding"

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

Happy birthday USA. Not looking so well at the moment.

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.

Yesterday I posted the first cut is the deepest sung by Cheryl Crow. This is the original version by Rod Stewart.

This is the first song by Steely Dan to appear in Covid Island Discs and perhaps his best known song. This song very much reminds me of another song that has the telephone number theme to its lyrics. I will cite that song in tomorrow's Covid Island Disc.

One thing about getting old is you begin to recognise song covers. This song by the Beautiful South which was released in 1994 but is actually a cover from a much older hit from by Harry Nilsson which has a lot of more a country cowboy feel. I have put the original song below The Beautiful South remake because if you are over 45 you will remember the original song as it dominated the radio waves in the 70s. Interestingly enough, the lady who introduces the song (in Spanish) says something about Paul McCartney

The Beautiful South Cover of Everybody's talking about me

Harry Nilsson original classic live performance (1968)

Well this song really should have been cited all the way back in week 5 of Covid Island Discs when the theme was crazy tunes, although that theme was tunes of the 1980s and this song came out all the way back in 1977. I am sure it will bring back lots of memories for people who are older than about 50.