Nothing’s ideal, no one’s impeccable, nothing’s completely pure, but this week it’s time to search for the beautifully formed, the perfectly pitched, the adorably flawless and more as the lyrical focus. Or that’s the plan …
Read moreSong Bar Fifth Birthday Special: Playlists – songs about jukeboxes
Early blues juke joints to big band jazz, 1950s rock’n’ roll to disco, punk, pop and later experimental music, with the Landlord’s playlists picked from reader nominations, we celebrate five years of Song Bar with numbers about this mechanical mind palace
Read moreNot playlists? Yes playlists: songs with misleading or incongruous titles
Not a single song has anything to do with what it says on the tin. But after many wonderful wrongfooting nominations, brilliant guest playlister Olive Butler puts them in an entertaining form of order
Read moreTake a deep breath: songs with arresting opening lines
Profound statements to emotional exclamations, sexual provocation to oddball situation, suggest your favourite and outstanding starter lyrics as we examine a host of musical and literary examples at the bar
Read moreMy log saw something … songs about the strange, disturbing and surreal
Log Lady to Blue Velvet, Beefheart and fantasy fish, doppelgängers and all-seeing owls, this week we delve in an alternative world where lyrics and music capture an area between dream and reality
Read morePlaylists: songs about chance and coincidence
Crossing The Streets and serendipity, to turning different corners with George Michael, this week's guest writer Maki takes his chance with not entirely random nominations to create inevitably perfect playlists
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