Word of the week: It's an instrument that brings to mind the soaring condor and mountainous Andes – a haunting, beautiful sound emanating from this simple, traditional wooden flute
Read moreWord of the week: quena
A selection of quena flutes
Word of the week: vibraslap
The vibraslap is a replacement for the jawbone
Word of the week: It's one of the most modern of all analogue percussion instruments, a combination of stiff wire, wooden ball and box with metal teeth, a replacement for animal bones, but where does it appear in songs?
Read moreWord of the week: aardvark (and aardwolf)
What’s not to love? Aardvarks
Word of the week: It’s that appealing, nocturnal, burrowing African mammal with a long snout that lives on ants and termites, but is also slang in parts of the US for an mistake-prone person and even an uncircumcised penis
Read moreWord of the week: bombast, bombastic, bombastry
Bombast, ironic and otherwise, comes in this album by The Fall
Word of the Week: It describes high-sounding, pretentious, showy language with little meaning used to impress people, and explodes enjoyably when pronounced, but how it is used in lyrics, and does it affect the natures of the song itself?
Read moreWord of the week: donnybrook
Fighting at Donnybrook Fair
Word of the Week: It means an uproarious drunken brawl, a scene of heated argument and fighting, and an Irish jig, but takes its name from a longstanding fair in a district of Dublin. So where does this word appear in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: flimflam
Flim flam isn’t only what people might say, it’s also a font
Word of the week: It means pseudo-intellectual nonsense, insincerity or a confidence trick perpetrated by elected officials, so while antiquated, always current and relevant, and with a lovely musicality where has it been used in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: ichthyosaur
An ichthyosaur could be a long as 15 metres. Surely that’s worth a song or two?
Word of the week: After last week’s fictional Jabberwocky, a real-life deep-sea dinosaur, a fish-reptile with an extraordinary evolutionary history on land and sea, famous in fossils, but where can we dive to find it in song lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: kismet
Kissed and met: Elvis Presley’s endless 1960s movie destiny
Word of the week: It’s originally from an Arabic word, qisma, meaning portion or lot, and taken from Turkey in the 19th century, meaning fate, but where has in turned up in song lyrics since the 20th century?
Read moreWord of the week: lux
The days are getting longer …
Word of the week: It’s not all doom and gloom right now. With the winter solstice just gone by, days will slowly lengthen, allowing us to perceive more lux, that unit of illuminance and luminous flux. It’s a beautiful word, but where does it appear in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: nebula, nebulous, nebulist, nebbich
The Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant of the constellation of Taurus
Word of the week: It’s a cloudy cluster of related words as we play with lovely sounding space dust, a haziness or vagueness and more, but where can it be found song lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: quark
From Hawkwind’s 1977 strangely particular album …
Word of the week: It's the infinitesimally small subatomic particle which forms matter, a type of curdled cheese from soured milk, is used in computer language and in sci-fi fiction names, but where in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: rhapsody
Scaramooche, scaramooche …
Word of the week: With an appropriately flamboyant sound and rhythm it’s a word best known for the title of Freddie Mercury’s epic Bohemian Queen song, and several major classical works, but where is it used in song lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: simian
You must remember this … a kiss is just …
Word of the week: It’s an adjective with a beautiful sound. It means the characteristics of our ape cousins, but of course sharing almost all the same DNA, it also means us. But where is simian in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: Tesla
Sparky: ArcAttack perform with a massive Tesla coil
Word of the Week: It sizzles off the tongue, it’s the name of a great inventor, and after him, a unit of magnetic flux density, and it’s also a car, and in slang recreational drug, but where does it appear in song lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: umbrella … umbracious ... umbraculum
Any umbrellas? Should we focus on Rihanna for some shelter?
Word of the Week: It’s a word with a beautiful sound formed from the Latin word, umbra, for shade, is not merely an expanding accessory to shelter from the rain, also a general term of protection or a thing made of many parts
Read moreWord of the week: vesper, vespertine, vespertilian …
Vesper cocktail, but that’s just one of many evening meanings …
Word of the Week: It’s a famous Bjork album, but where does it come up in lyrics? The root of this word relates to the evening and its tolling bell, but also bats, Venus, a cocktail, and in slang – a kind, smart, cool girl
Read moreWord of the week: whippet
A famous whippet frisbee-catching champion?
Word of the Week: It’s a slim, fast dog, the name of a car, a ship, a tank and a light aircraft, and also slang for recreational use of nitrous oxide from small metal containers, but where does it appear in song?
Read moreWord of the week: Xanadu
One of many visual impressions of the imagined stately pleasure palace
Word of the week: It’s an idealised location of magnificence and beauty with Chinese origins described in Coleridge’s poem, and a 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John and song performed with ELO, but where else does it appear in lyrics?
Read moreWord of the week: zephyr
The 1961 Ford Zephyr MkII. Other Zephyrs are available in song lyrics
Word of the week: Launching a new Song Bar series highlighting words or phrases used in lyrics for the oddness or musicality, let’s start with a z-word, and several examples including Madonna, Bill Callaghan, Frank Sinatra and Ian Dury
Read more