So two videos are my equal favourites this week in terms of visuals. As mentioned in my Natalie Imbruglia post, the video to torn is really clever and my other favourite is Rasputin by Bony M simply because Bobby Farrell's dancing cracks me up every time I watch the video.

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

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.

OK this is an interesting song by Cat Stevens because his music was used in one of the most bizarre dark comedy movies called Harold and Maud. If you haven't seen this movie, I can highly recommend it. The video of the song below is taken from the movie which is about a young man falling in love with a much older woman.

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.

So I'll admit that Jimi Hendrix is not my favourite artist but here is one of his classics which demonstrates some of his guitaring skill. If you like electric guitar, you're going to love this one. This video is quite funny really as it is sooo late 60s early 70s. Like the two cool hippy dudes dancing at the front getting the ears blasted by the outside speakers. Also quite funny crowd scenes capturing the "dress code" of the time. What I find a little sad about these 70s clips is that all these folk, who at the time, were so non-conformist, went on to form, in general, a generation which was far more materialistic than their parents and whose leadership has seen the most outrageous growth of inequality which has practically all but wiped out some of the gains we made in creating a more equitable society in the post 2nd world war Western world.

Covid Island Discs is finally drawing to a close. In theory the last of the Covid-19 restrictions in the UK will be removed on the 21^st of June 2021. Whether we will stay out of restrictions beyond the 21^st is anyone's guess given the Indian variant of the virus is rapidly becoming the dominate form in the UK and so might lead sadly to a third wave. I guess ultimately it will all depend on how effective the vaccines are against this new variant and how many people in the population have been vaccinated.

Therefore there is now only 2 full week's left until the 21^st of June so we are into the final 14 songs. So I could not possibly finish Covid Island Discs without another song from Karen Carpenter. She truly had such an incredibly beautiful voice and whenever I hear one of her songs I always feel a little melancholic because of her own tragic battle with anorexia nervosa which sadly she lost many years ago now.

This song get's my vote for its musical and lyrical intensity. A very moving song about a very sad subject of the permanent breakdown of a father and son's relationship laced with permanent unforgiveness on the part of the father.