THREE BEST SONGS : SOUNDSCAPE

LIFE is bust these days - so when you get some well-earned free time, it's important to use it wisely.

You could, for example, invest a spare 10 minutes listening to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's  song ' Crumbling Castle ' [2017] or Taylor Swift's ' All Too Well ' [ Taylor's Version ] [ 2021 ].

Alternatively, you could listen to these 3 songs, each less than a minute long, and each a masterpiece in brevity.

1.-  ' MEANT FOR YOU ' BY THE BEACH BOYS [ 1968 ]

Brian Wilson may have taken more of a backseat on The Beach Boys' following the abandonment of his magnum opus Smile, but he was still capable of coming up with extraordinarily beautiful music.

At just 39 seconds, '' Meant for You '' is over in a flash, but it's a flash of Wilson's genius.

2.-  ' BLACK NAILS ' BY TIERRA WHACK [ 2018 ]

Seemingly in defiance of its running time, Tierra Whack takes her time on ' Black Nails ' with the slow,  relaxed keyboard solo taking up almost a third of the song before the vocals come in.

I could have chosen any of the tracks from Whack's 2018 album Whack Life, but this perhaps the one where she makes the best use of the supershort format.

3.-  ' MY MUMMY'S DEAD ' BY JOHN LENNON [ 1970 ]

John Lennon fans in 1970 were a confused bunch. The year began with their idol still a Beatle [ he had, in fact, quit in September 1969, but it was kept quiet], and still sporting the long hair and beard from the Abbey Road album cover.

By its end, The Beatles were officially no more, Lennon had shaved his head, and had released the soul-baring album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band complete with f-bombs [Working Class Here], denouncement of his former band [God] and literal screams of anguish at his childhood trauma [Mother].

The final body-blow comes via final track ' My Mummy's Dead ' which, though its 51 seconds of simplistic, stripped back, devastating music, signaled that Beatlemania was finally over.

This great publishing continues.

The World Students Society thanks Professor Glenn Fosbraey, an Associate Dean Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Winchester in the UK.