Joe Jackson’s Jukebox 2009: A music show designed to raise your spirits during troubled times. Abridged

How is this for a crazy quote to start a podcast version of a radio series I recorded a decade ago? "As far as can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." Who said that? Carl Jung. But ever since I was fourteen or so, and raised my mother's spirits one sad day, by playing her an Elvis spiritual, something that then led to me writing in my diary, 'I realised today that a few simple words, spoken by me or pass on through a song by the king, can help raise someone else's spirits.'   The path to all my work ever since was paved! And that memory led directly to me making in 2009 and 2010 twenty-four one-hour programmes meant to raise the spirits of listeners during a global recession, and its aftermath. Now the world is shadowed by COVID-19, so I am making those shows - highly edited as is necessary re music on podcasts - here!