So this week didn't really contain any arty videos so my vote this week goes to the Beatles Don't let me down video just for the incongruency of seeing probably the greatest rock and roll band of all time having what looks like an impromptu jam on a London office block roof while office workers and police look on. John Lennon's fir coat is also pretty impressive ????.

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 I have one of Ryan Adams albums but this song wasn't on it. The song from the album I was searching for is called "Gimme something good" but while searching for it, this song popped up. The opening credit to this song is quite something as he filmed this on the 7^th of September 2001, a few days before those two gigantic buildings (the world trade center), which feature heavily in his film clip, would come crashing down forever changing airtravel as we know it.

My own personal memories of those amazing buildings date back to 2000 when I was at a scientific conference in New York. One afternoon I went to the observation level of the World Trade Center which was always incredible because unlike the Empire State building, they had designed the roof top so there was no actual safety netting or fencing. Basically, you could walk out to an edge which had a short drop down of about 5 feet into a pit area that was probably about 20 feet wide. If you were to jump into the pit (obviously you couldn't jump 20 feet to make it to the ultimate edge of the building), you of course you would not hurt yourself but once down in the pit area, you were protected from the ultimate building edge by a perimeter wall which I guess was about 10 feet high.

I arrived at the World Trade Center in the early afternoon and made my way up to the lower observation deck. This floor was inside and in the central part, was packed full of shops and food outlets. I bought myself an early tea (some pizza and coke) and then went up to the roof top where I spent several hours watching the sun set and the city transform itself from a day to a nightscape as literally thousands upon thousands of tiny lights began to illuminate across that incredibly vast city. It was a memory I will never forget and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to do it.

On the day the Trade Centers came down, I felt physically sick and my mind kept wondering if any of the folk who served me tea that afternoon were now lying dead in the ruins of those mighty towers. Of course I will never know but given I was only there the year before, it is sadly possible that some of the people I interacted with that day lost their lives on that cold morning of September 11^th.

One of those songs everyone has heard and knows. Surprise they didn't use this song for the American Werewolves in London movie.

Countdown to the year anniversary of Covid Island Discs T -6

So this song was a hit from Kate Bush's album Lionheart. Is is a particularly intense and musically dramatic song and the accompanying video has all the Kate Bush trademarks including great choreography and the persistent image trace of her moving arms. The guy dressed all in black with a black hood adds a menacing touch to the video to match the menacing feel the lyrics of the song also create.

The song itself is based around the film production company Hammer which is based in London and produced many classic horror movies including Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy, which Hammer reintroduced to audiences by filming them in colour for the first time. Apparently Kate Bush used to supply screams for horror movies so I wonder if she actually worked for Hammer in her early days?

So this is the second song from Cyndi Lauper to be cited on Covid Island Discs. This song brings back lots of memories of being a young teenager in year 11 high school. Cyndi Lauper's album "She's so unusual" really dominated the Australian airwaves and this was probably the main hit from the album along with the other main hit from the album being Girls just want to have fun

Time for some more Aussie music I feel. This is another classic from Cold Chisel and the video is well worth taking the time to watch. Some great footage of 70s Sydney chicks 😍 and a great sax solo to boot.

Surprised I have not cited this Eagles classic before now. This song was the 5^th track on their One of these nights album and is certainly one of their classics. Apparently the inspiration for this song came about as follows:

The title and idea for the song came when Glenn Frey and Don Henley were in their favourite Los Angeles restaurant/bar Dan Tana's which was frequented by many beautiful women, and they started talking about beautiful women who were cheating on their husbands. They saw a beautiful young woman with a fat and much older wealthy man, and Frey said: "She can't even hide those lyin' eyes." (Wikipedia)