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?
Read moreFantastic, it's for real: songs about illusion
Visual, auditory, via media, rumour, or any other distortion of perceptions, from personal experience to the political, this week we search for songs about the interplay of the senses and idea of illusions as a primary focus
Read moreThere goes the neighbourhood: songs about the urban environment
Ugly or beautiful, hostile or friendly, boring or dynamic, urban environments are where people live but they are constantly in flux. This week it’s time to get a different sense of place in this potentially vast subject that also can do into tiny detail
Read moreTake a piece: songs that quote or offer advice
Reported or direct, the practical or philosophical, the benevolent or biased, critical or contradictory, from parent to child, expert to novice, or general, this week it’s all about useful instruction, ignored or taken and ideally as detailed and unusual as possible
Read moreGet cartography: songs about maps
Accurately marked with facts and perfect proportions? Or fuel for fantasy and the imagination? Maps make stories, and stories make maps, and their fascination leads to where X marks the spot. So let’s go there and start digging …
Read moreThumbs up: catch songs about hitchhiking
It’s time to give us all a lift, not only emotionally, but as Song Bar bus sets off on a road trip, picking up all sorts of musicians and other artists, in a quest to find for stories about hitching experiences – good, bad, scary or heartwarming
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