Crime, culture, music, identity, fashion? From family belonging to sheer survival, there are many reasons to join a gang, but how do you get out? From street kids to Mafia organisations, this huge and colourful subject has inspired many songs …
Read moreWhat's the buzz, hive mind? Songs about bees
Time to get busy! From honey to nectar, pollination to special dance moves, lyrics literal or metaphor, or in sounds, with World Bee Day coming up, it’s time to feel the musical buzz of these inspirational insects in all that they mean to humans, and how we should protect them
Read moreHello Wembley! Songs pertaining to live music venues and spaces
Bars, basements, intimate, sweaty or large or legendary, forests, festivals, stratospheric stadia, snug pubs to prisons, caves to operatic amphitheatres, let's musically celebrate venues and spaces mentioned by, or associated with songs
Read moreStand up for your mics: songs about equality
Whatever the platform, the genre or message, this week we’re exploring the issue of equality, if not being the same, from gender to race, politics to work, how to get and if it’s even possible, all through lyrics
Read moreThe art of noises: electronic music and songs up to 1983
Early 20th-century experimentalists to MIDI, industrial, dance, new wave, French musique concrete, Japanese chiptune to German elektronische, let’s explore old-school noise and value those valves worldwide
Read moreSpecial offer! Going for a song – about sales, selling and bargains
Step right up! This week we look into the psychology of selling and the heartbeat of bargains across our culture. Retail therapy to ripoff, suggest lyrics all about the intimacy and anonymity of commercial transaction
Read moreBake-off? No, far better: songs about bread, cake, pastry and biscuits
This week it's less about the reality TV competition, instead a much tastier treat into the world of lyrical bagels and brot, cupcakes and buns, breadlines and Bourbons. Take your pick and dig in …
Read morePlaylists for this place: songs from and about Manchester
Cabbage to Inspiral Carpets, John Cooper Clarke to a visiting Sister Rosetta Tharpe, guest writer treefrogdemon compiles humorous and moving lists from hundreds of songs for last week's tribute topic
Read moreThis is the place: songs about and from Manchester
As a tribute to the dead, the injured, and all those affected by the Manchester Arena bombing, this week let's suggest songs that capture the culture, character, accents, humour and history of this city
Read moreDon't read or listen to this: ironic songs
From sarcasm to situation, dramatic twist to tragic consequence or perspective, let's take a wry look at songs that say one thing, but then reveal another
Read moreShare: songs that mention specific or obscure locations
Billericay to Barrytown, Rock Creek Park to Reno, Solsbury Hill to Stonehenge, Warwick Avenue to Waterloo? Whether inside cafes, under station clocks or in a tiny box, suggest songs that take you to a specific or lesser-known place
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