It’s pleasing to ear and eye, verbally, musically and rhythmically, so let’s seek songs with forms of lyrical antimetabole, the repetition of one or more words in successive clauses, but a transposed order
Read moreCántame una canción! It's time for songs in Spanish
From Spain itself to the Americas – Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Argentina, Puerto Rico and more – to the US and beyond, it’s the second most spoken native language in the world. From soothing, passionate, poetic beauty to the gritty and guttural, let’s gather some of the most melodious examples …
Read moreLost or found? Songs about paradise
What is yours? From Arcadia to Utopia, how can we create or find it? Where is it, and what does it look like? This week, after previously doing the impossible, we find the unfindable in the form of song, inspired my many books, art and films …
Read moreThat sinking feeling: songs about sand
This week’s lyrical topic offers a broad, varied landscape of metaphor and colour, of passing time, of instability and mutability, of the solid and the fluid, of the barren and the beautiful. Let’s dig deep for some treasures …
Read moreTake your pick: songs about collecting, cataloguing and lists
Galleries to grand libraries, public or private, unusual or colourful objects, from the oddball to unhealthy obsession, this week we enter the extraordinary world of collecting, listing and cataloguing and everything that motivates it
Read moreI know why the caged bird sings: songs about or expressing empathy
I feel for you. Reach out and I’ll be there. This week we’re seeking song-related understanding and connection the form of songs about empathy, and though it’s different perhaps also little secondary sympathy, in form or content
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