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Voluminous …
It’s an essential part of life - defined as a cognitive, active process of decoding these symbols to arrive at meaning, perhaps for a purpose to direct or extract information, to focus a goal, to simply to discover and escape, but how does it come up in song?
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Are you fur staying on the fence?
From the many various situations and vacillations of love to shopping, voting, moving or staying and more, it’s finally time to plump for indecisiveness on song lyrics. The choice of what to nominate is yours. If you can …
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Early music recording attempts at the end of the 19th century
This global history topic takes in many events, inventions, people and social trends, but beyond dates and facts, it is particularly about life of the times, habits, attitudes and values, and can also include fictional and other artistic styles
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Look no further. The greatest. Muhammad Ali
This week, from lyrical non-ironic self-proclamation to nuanced false narrators, a brimming edition of self-aggrandisement with a dash of arrogance, of big-headed and bombastic braggadocio, of cockiness, conceited crowing and crazed confidence, with a dollop of self-delusion …
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Hot on the horizon: The Meitan Tea Museum in Guizhou Province, China stands more than 70 metres in height
The routine, the ceremony, the warming up, the cooling down, the flavour, the comfort, the refreshment and everything that goes with it. This week we’re brewing up and leafing through our music collections …
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Greta Garbo - a singular inspiration for many a song
Welcome to the special Song Bar Singles Night, where, with the help of many special guests who chat freely on the subject, we seek songs on the ups and downs of the single state, from loneliness to blissful solitude, dating and even giving yourself a helping hand …
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Ice work if you can get it …
Things are really hotting up, so it’s time to lower the temperature a bit. Whether that involves cooling off on your insides or outside, physical, visceral, mental or metaphorical, let’s cool off with some songs on the subject
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How to putt it? Fiddling while Rome burns …?
Whether genuine or feigned, in love, politics or the natural world, it’s as all-pervasive as gravity, and with a pulling power just as immense. So tugging against it, what bigger form of attention-seeking is there than writing and performing a song? But how do songs deal with indifference?
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Vaccine? The latest scramble for gig tickets is getting a little out of hand …
This may well be a subject with bite. Can you put some flesh on it, or strip back to the bone? Zombies, mummys or other horror-film types who are reanimated and have single-minded hunger should have a strong musical appetite
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Marvin is on …
They might range from the cheesiest, mirror-ball last dance, to the most intimate, close-to-the-mic moments of music history. But this week, while raising the heartbeat, we’re going slow in pace and minimal in sound. Let’s get it on …
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Spring bluebells quietly getting on with it
Tranquillity, calm and serenity, or concentration, slow stirring, unrest, plotting and revolution? There are all kinds of quiet out there, and this week it’s time to explore these as described or captured in song lyrics
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Captain Beefheart. Not exactly a shrinking wallflower in the obstinacy stakes
Stupid or inspired? Annoying obstinacy, obduracy, inflexibility and bullheadedness, or admirable persistence, pertinacity, tenacity and indomitability? It can go both ways, but how might it shape up in song lyrics?
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Jimi Hendrix. Fan of the flames
What happens when we do it on purpose? This week’s sparky topic might well be illuminating, fanning the flames of human life in all its creativity energy and destructive tragedy, from hearth to ritual, entertainment to war
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Hound of love? Indirect delivery
Through a third party, on scribbled letters left, sent or hidden, on answering machines or other means, even via prayer, this week let's look at songs about communication to an individual sent via a roundabout route
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It’s dragon on a bit. But how will it end? Gratuitous picture that has nothing to do with music
Sex, love relationships, work, politics, and war, appearances all play apart in the game of life, and this week with a huge cast of talent coming to visit the Bar, we discuss and explore the art and topic of false or true in song lyrics
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Yoda. Seeing the lighter side
This week we’re not being clever,, simply seeking wisdom in individual lyrics or across a whole song. From philosophers to musicians to authors, how is is it gained, through humility, experience, courage, or a just turn of phrase?
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He nose, but does she? Cyrano de Bergerac
Clandestine cravings and crushes? To spice up a romantic tradition, this week’s topic is all about secret love longings expressed through song, here inspired by real-life examples of musicians, alongside film, books and theatre
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Not so strange bedfellows: Eric and Ernie
The non-sexual, non-romantic sort is what makes up most of the love we experience in life, so whether that concerns real or fictional experiences, let’s define and explore it as expressed in song lyrics
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England is dreaming? … Who? Keith, Roger, Pete and John
Let’s take a musical trip around this strange, sceptr’d isle, this land of eccentric frontmen, this place of punk and flourishing fashion, to pick up lots of place names and perhaps also define the nature of being English
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