My favourite video from this playlist (in terms of the visuals) in the first week goes to Dido's "Sand in my shoes" (song 2 in the playlist video) perhaps some of you are thinking, for obvious reasons.

Just learned the sad news that Sinéad O'Conner has passed away. I remember a few years before Covid struck I read a very sad social media exchange where clearly the singer was suffering terribly with some form of mental anguish. Whether her mental struggles finally claimed her, is anyone's guess but like so many very talented musicians she did not make it to old age. Of course I have already cited Nothing compares to you all the way back in week 12 (day 81) of my original Covid Island Discs.

Going back to Youtube to find other music she published I came across two songs both directly related to Christianity so I wonder now if she did have a faith in Jesus. If so, I hope now he is wiping every tear from her eyes.

Rest In Peace and Goodnight Sinéad.

The first song below is Silent Night and is rather haunting to listen to on the day of her passing. The second song Something Beautiful is from her album theology also a song related to God's promise to his chosen people that he cannot forget them or cease to love them.

Silent Night

Something Beautiful

OK day 1 of social isolation. To keep myself and perhaps some of you guys amused I am going to post a song from Youtube each day and a bit about why I like it. Rather than call it Desert Island Discs, I will call it Covid Island Discs. So many of my Australian friends know that when I was a young teenager/20 something year old (a few years back, not saying which planet years), one of my favourite bands was Supertramp. Therefore, it would be wrong of me not to start with one of their songs. The song is called Hide in Your Shell.

I tend to really like songs with good lyrics and this one has a rich set. Trying to choose my favourite line is difficult but several really shine such as:

1. "heaven or hell was the journey cold that gave you eyes of steal, sheltered behind well painting your mind and playing joker."
2. "but you got demons in your closet, and your screaming out to stop it, saying life's began to cheat you, friends our out to beat you grab onto what you can scramble for."
3. "I as a boy I believed the sane cure for pain was love, how would it be if you could see the world through my eyes."

Enjoy

Such an angry song sadly directed against his former band mate Paul McCartney. However it is a great tune that I can re-purpose for a much more deserving recipient, our current Prime Minister and charlatan Boris Johnson. On the night I write this it looks as if Britain is moving inexorably to crashing out of the EU without a deal which is only going to hurt so many vulnerable people and businesses.

All I can think about when I observe Johnson's lying and trolling is the report he received from Eton back when I too was at school (yes I am a similar age to him). How little it seems this man has changed over the years.

“Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

This song came out in the 90s when I was leading a young teenage group at Platt known as Pathfinders. On one weekend away all the guys had this playing on their walkmans (before the days of MP3 players). This was my first introduction to grunge music.

Kurt Cobain another entertainer who didn't make it to 29. The late twenties seem to be a very dangerous age for talented rock musicians.

Time to lighten the mood a little. Another classic 80s dance song. Enjoy those synthesizers.

While I don't have any Tom Petty albums, except for when he was part of the Travelling Wilbury's I really like this song. Was also sad to hear when he passed away from in 2017. I thought he died of a heart attack but after checking Wiki it turned out to be a drug overdose:

had died accidentally from mixed drug toxicity, a combination of fentanyl, oxycodone, acetylfentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl (all opioids); temazepam and alprazolam (both sedatives); and citalopram (an antidepressant). In a statement on his official website, Petty's wife and daughter said he had multiple medical problems, including emphysema, knee difficulties and most significantly a fractured hip. He was prescribed pain medication for these problems and informed on the day of his death that his hip injury had worsened. The statement read, '[it] is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his overuse of medication.... We feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.'

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