So for this final playlist I am not going to comment on the videos in this week's list. Instead I shall just cite the lyrics of my final song to close Covid Island Discs Given the mess we're are in with the Covid-19 delta variant and runaway global heating, I think many reading these lyrics will feel a sense of "Amen" to that.

I've been living to see you Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this This was unexpected, what do I do now Could we start again, please? I've been very hopeful so far Now for the first time I think we're going wrong Hurry up and tell me this is just a dream Or could we start again, please? I think you've made your point now You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt So could we start again, please? I've been living to see you Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this This was unexpected, what do I do now Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? I think you've made you point now You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt So could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again, please? Could we start again? Could we start again?

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

So my centre of gravity appears to be songs of the seventies and eighties right? I have occasionally ventured into the 21^st century but now it is time to go even further back to 1969 and this timeless classic. This song has such classic lyrics. I particularly like

you get an even suntan on your back and on your legs. And when the snow falls your found in St Moritz with the other jetset, and you sip your Napoleon brandy but you never get your lips wet.

"All you did was wreck my bed and in the morning kicked me the head." Such romantic lyrics. This is a live version of the song which begins with a slower melody than the origin album version. Another cool thing about this version is having Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones playing a 6 sting acoustic.

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.

From the funny "Walk like an Egyptian" to a more mature romantic song from the Bangles.

Certainly another great band that produced some great music over the years yet as with so many great rock bands, one of its members is no longer with us. I remember the day that Michael Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room from I guess suicide; I was driving back from Sydney University as I was visiting Australia at the time. It was an absolutely stunning day in Sydney and as the news was announced on the news the radio DJ came on afterwards and said "Why did he go and do that for?" Such a crystal clear memory for me.

This is the second time I have cited a Moody Blues song. This is a very pretty song but much less well known than their classic Nights in White Satin. Another song which has an interesting musical progression with the chorus line:

When all the stars are falling down
Into the sea and on the ground
And angry voices carry on the wind
A beam of light will fill your head
And you'll remember what's been said
By all the good men this world's ever known

The illusion that is created throughout the song is a constant musical descent which matches the emotional content of the song about a man who is suffer from a feeling of "pensive sadness": melancholy. The illusion of constant musical descent reminds me very much of the Supertramp classic Crime of the Century (Covid Island Discs Day 229) which also creates the illusion of the music constantly descending from high to low notes.