Like week 35, the choice for the best video of week 36 was also an easy decision to make. While Michael Jackson's music is not always my cup of tea, his videos are incredible because the dance sequences in them are amazing.

The video for the song "Beat It" is not an exception. In fact, I think it is one of the best ones he produced in terms of a dance sequence. It was such clever choreography to get men from two opposing gangs to perform a dance which represents a stylised fight, ending with Michael Jackson making peace between the two gang leaders. The video concludes in a single co-ordinated dance with dozens of male dancers (gang members). Very clever indeed!

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

A great song by Carly Simon and interestingly she must have performed it at the same venue as the first song of hers I shared all the way back in week 8, day 54. Would love to have been on one of those boats in that Marina.

As everyone will be well aware there are plenty of Christmas classics that fill our radio stations every year. While I have included some I am also on the hunt for less well known ones for Covid Island Discs.

I have only ever posted one Carpenter hit so far all the way back on day 190. This is a song Karen did for Christmas and I thought I would include it here because while the song might seem a bit cheesy Karen's Carpenters voice really was phenomenal. Sadly she passed away much too young from anorexia nervosa.

Another great song from a great Aussie band. A joyous song celebrating young love.

So the last song of Kim Wilde's I shared was a comical Christmas song: Rockin' around the Christmas tree a duet between her and the late great comedian Mel Smith. This song is at the opposite end of the spectrum and captures one of the darkest moments of US history when Nixon ordered the carpet bombing of Cambodia to try and break the stalemate in the Vietnam war as the Viet Cong were using the Eastern part of this neutral country as a place of refuge.

Sadly, the unintended consequence of this military action was the rise of Khmer Rouge which in 1970 resulted in what is described in the Wiki article as follows:

By late March 1970, Cambodia had descended into anarchy as Karnow noted: Rival Cambodian gangs were hacking each other to pieces, in some instances celebrating their prowess by eating the hearts and livers of their victims. The North Vietnamese response was swift, they began directly supplying large amounts of weapons and advisors to the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia plunged into civil war. Lon Nol saw Cambodia's population of 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese as possible hostages to prevent PAVN attacks and ordered their roundup and internment. One hundred and forty four Cambodian soldiers and civilians then unleashed a reign of terror, murdering thousands of Vietnamese civilians. Lon Nol encouraged pogroms against the Vietnamese minority and the Cambodian police took the lead in organizing the pogroms. On 15 April for example, 800 Vietnamese men had been rounded up at the village of Churi Changwar, tied together, executed, and their bodies dumped into the Mekong River. They then floated downstream into South Vietnam. Cambodia's actions were denounced by both the North and South Vietnamese governments.

As the lead singer of Midnight Oil Peter Garrett noted, Henry Kissinger (Nixon's secretary of state and defence advisor) would later be awarded a Nobel Peace prize much to the chagrin of many.

Covid Island Discs Covid Island new year's Day

So what mega band do I open up the second year of Covid Island Discs (hopefully the UK lockdown won't last for two years)? Well surely it has to be arguably the greatest rock and roll band of all time and that is the Beatles. I have already cited several Beatle songs last year but this one is also another classic - Penny Lane. As mentioned previously, whenever I listen to the Beatles I always wish I could go back in time to the 60s when the Beatles were actively at work producing such incredible ground breaking music.

The dark theme of Lana Del Rey's song Chemtrails over the country club reminded me of this Aussie classic by Hoodoo Gurus. A really rocky song with the rather dark chorus: "All my friends are dead or they're dying and our laughter turns to crying, it's death defying".