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 moreGoth, gore and more: scary, creepy, horror-inspired songs
Whether inspired by fictional horror in books or film, or indeed horrors of the real world, physical or psychological, stylishly goth or gruesomely gory, this Halloween-inspired topic is all about songs that send a shiver up the spine
Read moreWhat comes around ... songs about wheels
Literal or metaphorical, it's time the let the cogs of lateral thinking to turn out lyrical suggestions on this topic. In one way or another it will not doubt be revolutionary …
Read moreNew meets old: songs where different-era elements combine
This week we seek strange combinations from starkly different times – old songs covered on new instruments, new songs played on old instruments, traditional musicians playing with younger, or old styles mashed up with the new
Read moreTry putting this down: songs with self-deprecation
Humorous or serious? Self-defence mechanism, attention-seeking, of self-aggrandisement? This week’s lyric topic is richly nuanced, ironic, and covers a range of emotions, often fuelled by love and ambition, tempered by self-belittling
Read moreVote on what lies beneath: songs about trust
There’s a UK general election today, but here it’s also time to vote for songs about trust, that fragile but vital hub around which the world spins, in love, family, friendships, the self, creativity, religion, but also played in politics and business
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
Read moreLate goals: striking song and album endings
No – it’s not the World Cup. This week we’re looking at all kinds of ends of albums and other songs – from surprising, sudden, or summing up, to those that are ambiguous, serious, comical or take us to a new place
Read moreDiary of a nobody? Songs about anonymity
Whether feeling like a nobody, or actually being anonymous, from hackers to the lonely and helpless, from fame to unknown heroism, let's explore this contradictory feeling as expressed in lyrics, from spotlight to the shadows
Read moreSecond nature: songs about travelling in time
This week it's time to set the musical controls - to suggest songs that about time travel in the sci-fi sense, but also those that might move to another period in past or future in metaphor, memory and the imagination
Read moreCrisis? What mid-life crisis? Songs about renewal, rebirth and starting over
What links Mr Benn, Reginald Perrin, John Lennon, Beck, Jill Scott, Siobhan Fahey, Stephen King and Franz Kafka? From philosophy to religion, giving up drugs to leaving prison, visit Song Bar to find out more and suggest songs on this topic ...
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