This poem is about the speaker being "at home" "playing record after record", whilst a person who I'm presuming is the speaker's mum, is in another room listening to the same music. The poem starts by the speaker's mum saying that the record previously played was a "pretty one". The word "pretty" seems a significantly less powerful adjective to use to describe music compared to the way the speaker has done in this poem and has done in other musical Larkin poems. The comment by the speaker's mum could suggest that she is less interested in the music than him, but still enjoys listening to it because it's a way of spending time with her son and she wants to please him.
The speaker was in "the unsatisfactory room" and his mum was in "the unsatisfactory hall". The repetition of "unsatisfactory" in both places could suggest that the speaker feels isolated and unhappy at home wherever he is in the house, perhaps the house he was brought up in no longer feels like home to him anymore. This could link to another Larkin poem, 'Home Is So Sad' but also Abse's poem 'Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road'.
The speaker was "wasting" time, playing the records "idly", however this is the time that his mum "looked so much forward to". The contrast here is that it seems the speaker isn't enjoying the time spent listening to music with his mum, as if he was enjoying it, he wouldn't see it as wasted time? Maybe he feels like he should be doing something purposeful, but his mum actually looks forward to this time. However, there is also a similarity in these comments by the speaker because both people are wasting time, like the speaker says he is and the speaker's mum is essentially wishing away the present so she can spend time with her son. This emphasises how as people grow up, they have less time for their parents because their lives are busy with other things, yet a lot of elderly people's lives revolve around their family and seeing them, leaving the elderly feeling lonely.
At the end of the second stanza, "unsatisfactory is repeated again, the speaker's mum's "unsatisfactory age" and the speaker's "unsatisfactory prime". Both times in the people's lives being unsatisfactory could suggest that at whatever age no one is 100% happy. Perhaps the speaker feels guilty for his mum's old age, when he is at him prime age where he is starting to live, and she's nearing the end of her life. In this stanza it's made clear that "Oliver's Riverside Blues" reminds the speaker of the time with his mum when he perhaps wasn't appreciating time spent with her as much as he wishes he had done.
Like many other Larkin poems, the final stanza of this poem is a lot more philosophical than the rest of the poem. The speaker says that although "our element is time, we're not suited to the long perspectives", this suggests that we should live in the present more, instead of constantly reflecting on the past or focusing on the future. It can prevent us from appreciating something which is happening at the moment in our lives. The speaker says that reflecting over life shows us "what we have as it once was, blindingly undiminished", this expresses quite a depressing view, suggesting that as time goes by everything in our life decays and everything is better in youth. The speaker realises that "by acting differently we could have kept it so", suggesting that our life choices define our lives and emphasises the importance of appreciating time and the precious moments we experience.
The idea of looking back on music and everything being better in youth reminds me of Larkin's poem 'Love Songs in Age'. Also, 'Dockery and Son' and 'Self's the Man' link to this poem because they all express the idea that our life choices determine the rest of our lives. As well as these poems, Larkin's poem 'Send No Money' links to this poem because the speaker watches time pass and didn't fully appreciate the present. And like I have already said, Larkin's 'Home is so Sad' and Abse's 'Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road' links to this poem.
The main thought I am left with after reading this poem is that we can never get back time so we should try and appreciate every moment. This idea reminds me of Larkin's poem 'Ambulances' which suggests that life is so fragile that it's like it's hanging on a "thread", emphasising how precious life is and how really we are lucky to be alive.
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