So week 25 is a very big week in terms of high quality videos that accompany each song. The top three are definitely:

1. Disco 2000 by Pulp
2. Pacify her by Melanie Martinez
3. The Final Cut by Pink Floyd

I think out of these three, "Pacify her" by Melanie Martinez is perhaps the most interesting visually although the Final Cut imagery is also pretty evocative. Another video that is worth checking out is the final one for this week which was "New York, New York" by Ryan Adams. This video is particularly poignant because it features heavily the New York World Trade centre filmed on Friday the 7^th of September just 4 days before they were tragically destroyed in one of the worst terrorist instances ever.

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

There is so much truth in the chorus line:

the more I know, the less I understand
all the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again.
I've been trying to get down, to the heart of matter
but my will get's weak and my thoughts seem to scatter
but I think it's about forgiveness, forgiveness even if, even if you don't love me anymore.

In this song, Alan Parsons adopts Egyptian mythology and imagines a conversation between a man who is at the point of death and the boatman who has been charged with taking his soul across the river of death. I have written below the beginning of verses 1 and 2.

"Well I sympathise completely, but there is nothing I can do, I am just a humble servant with a message here for you. And I know you have good reasons and there's things you have to do but the boatman won't be waiting and he's leaving here with you."

"Well I sympathise completely, but there is nothing I can do, I am just obeying order, I'm a simple soul like you. Well you really are persuasive but I heard it all before.."

That final line of verse 2 I have always found striking as the image is so powerful. Yes imagine the most powerful richest man or woman in the world trying to argue with death that it is not their time. I love the way death (the boatman) is so polite softening the blow with feigned praise; "yes you really are persuasive .... but I heard it all before: wow what an understatement when one thinks of the number of people in the history of the world who have died.

Back in the days when I was a St Paul's fellowship leader, I used this song in an Evangelistic play I put together. A girl who attended our fellowship group at the time, who was a dancer, put together a really cool choreographed dance sequence for me. Once more all distant memories of long lost days.

So one final thing, about this clip. It features the late comedian Robin Williams playing the part of the protesting traveller. Somewhat sad and ironic because, as with so many comedians, in reality William's life was much more towards this melancholic end of the scale rather than the funny man of many of his movies and of course in the end he embraced the boatman through suicide — RIP.

Hope this sentiment holds for the USA and that they are never fooled again by a charlatan like Trump. For that matter, I also hope that our Trump-like prime minister's time is also short and we can finally rid ourselves of our aberrant nationalistic hard right wing Conservative Party.

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.

OK we shall finish the week off with a song from the band Crowded House. Now this song was only published last month so for once I am citing song which are up to date rather than my usual living in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Poor old Neil Finn is looking a lot older than I remember him in the days of Split Enz. I've only listened to the song a few times but it is pretty good with what I would describe as a fairly laid back feel to it. The video clip is also pretty interesting with lots of evocative images in it.

As I have often observed while doing Covid Island Discs, it is amazing that even after over a year of citing songs, I suddenly remember a super rock classic that I have forgotten to include. I only remember this one because I was preparing a brief biography on the musician and music producer Alan Parsons. It turns out that it was Parson's that added the saxophone part to this song which transformed it into the enduring classic that it now is.