This week is unusual is that only Lennon's Beautiful boy is a themed video and given it is just his personal family videos it does not really qualify for any artistic praise (although still quite touching). In terms of the other videos of each band I guess I must go with the Beatles as this is such iconic footage. Also quite funny seeing John Lennon miss coming in on vocals in the second verse which starts "Hey Jude, don't let me down". At about 2:46 minutes Paul McCartney is trying to catch John Lennon's eye and at 2:48 you see John query and shake his head. In the third verse he is constantly looking across and John and then breaks out with a little smile as John harmonises with him in the third verse as planned.

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

I was a clumsy child. My life nearly ended as a toddler when I fell into a swimming pool and all but drowned to the point of being clinically dead. Then in 1978 I managed to get hit by a car in the UK and ended up in hospital with a broken pelvis for 6 weeks (only a very minor hairline fracture I might add). As a 12 year old just getting my first pulse of teenage hormones, I remember falling in love with all the nurses that cared for me. I still have such a clear image of them making the beds in the morning while the radio blasted out the two big hits at the time. The first was the song Wow by Kate Bush (another entertainer who had lots of teenage male fans not just because she produced amazing music). The second song? You'll find out tomorrow but I guarantee you will never guess it.

So Rolling Stone magazine said the Queen and Bowie match up to produce Under Pressure (see yesterday's offering) was the second greatest collaboration of all time. The wiki article didn't state what the magazine thought was the greatest. A few of you made some interesting suggestions ????. My favourite funny suggestion was McCartney and Jackson "The girl is mine". Yes even an ex-Beatle can sometimes produce rubbish. Yet if I had to bet money on the Rolling Stone's accolade of the greatest rock collaboration of all time, surely the Traveling Wilburys (George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan) would have to be on the money so to speak. Sadly, with the death of Petty in 2017, only two out of the original five survive.

Denis Colligan and I saw ELO in concert last year and Jeff Lynne introduced this song by saying: "this song is from my other band". Wow imagine being able to say that. Will Johnston this one's for you.

Another one of my favourite Coldplay songs for sooo many reasons. The line that rings so true to me (especially in relation to my past chosen career of cell biology) is: "Nobody said it be easy, nobody said it would be so hard."

I think many honest folk who work in RAE (publish or perish) world that is sadly modern day medical research can very much relate to that sentiment.

So last week I posted a song from Pink Floyd's album a momentary lapse of reason called learning to fly. This song is from the same album which was published after Roger Waters left the band. I was very fortunate to see Pink Floyd just after this album was released and it was definitely one of the best concerts I have ever seen. The lighting show was truly out of this world. This particular song not only supports a lovely tune but attempts to appeal to our better natures as we witness the immense suffering of the millions in this world who are not as fortunate as ourselves.

For a band that was created for a television series this song certainly deserves to be included in Covid Island Discs. A really pretty song and probably the Monkees at their best.

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.