My favourite video in terms of visuals this week was Shiny Happy People (song 5 in this play list video) by REM. This band always produces very interesting videos, you might also like to check out the one for Losing my Religion.

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

The problem of evil (whether natural or human) has vexed philosophers and led to atheism down the ages. For many, Covid-19 is a timely reminder for why they do not believe in God. Yet I wonder if our problem with "the problem of evil" is we simply vastly underestimate how difficult it is to fix? Good Friday reminds me that even for God, the problem of evil could not just be brushed away by the power he used to create the cosmos. No it required his own mysterious Trinitarian Personhood to be broken: the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son interrupted for a finite period of time as Jesus hung in agony on the cross crying out "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?". Because he did this for me (and for all those who will receive it) I am very, very thankful.

Another great concert I was able to see back in the 80s. I remember Phil Collins opening his concert with synchro drumming (Phil Collins is a very accomplished drummer so he was on stage with another drummer). They then went into this song.

I am a little surprised I have not included a Carol King song in my collection yet. I wanted to find a live performance of her song Tapestry because once again I find the lyrics of this song more interesting than some of her other classics.

However, it is quite hard to find a clip of Youtube with her performing this song as it is not as famous as her other works even though her best selling album was named after this song. Finally I found this Youtube clip which contains a little bit of Carol King's life history at the end of it.

Ok so this song brings back lots of teenage memories for me. I remember going on a youth camp when I was about 16 and one night we had a video night where we watched all the Rocky movies back to back. This song always reminds me of that camp which was so much fun. I remember falling in love with a girl on the camp called Karen Bishop. I wonder what became of her?

So if you click on my release dates, you will see that my musical centre is around the 70s and 80s. Likewise there is a distinct drop off in youtube video release dates post 2010. I'll be honest, I haven't found the music that is played on the radio from about 2010 onwards that inspiring. A lot of the music is just too "kitchy" for me with dominate hip hop electronic music that I simply can't relate to at all. I guess this is simply showing my age.

Therefore I was rather pleased to find the latest Foo Fighter song release on Youtube which was only released 11 days from when I am writing this blog (15 days at this blog publication date). It is great to see (what I would call a classic rock band) actively producing new music and this song is particularly good in my opinion.

I really like the musical progression of this song as it asks the question is "there more to this than that?" Another song that mirrors the existential angst of humanity as we walk this strange path of what we call life.

Update 25^th March 2022: On this day the drummer of Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins passed away from what looks like a cardiac infarction. Sadly Taylor struggled with addiction issues and the toxicology report stated that "Hawkins had ten substances in his system at the time of his death, including opioids, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, and THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis" (Wikipedia). Sadly another rock & roll artist who was tortured by his demons and died way too young (he had only turned 50 in February). RIP Taylor!

This little number appeared on Queen's "Night at the Opera" album which in my view was by far their best album. I really like this little ditty as it captures the wise truth that it is very easy to lose friendships with the progression of the years. In my own life I can think of many who have travelled some of that strange road we call our life and yet are no longer walking with me. My favourite lines in this song are:

Now I'm old and puff my pipe but no one's there to see
Ponder on my the lesson of my life's insanity
Take care of those you call your own and keep good company.

The banjo in this song is also very good!