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Don’t do it, Father Dougal …
… and how can it all go right? This week let’s see if we can make musical manoeuvres in the current climate, causes and cures for crises, whether they be political social, economic or personal
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David Bowie and ‘family’ on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth
Transcending distance and time, and sometimes in another dimension, space itself, this week we look to go the full distance to explore the trials and triumphs of enduring love, or otherwise, made or broken by absence
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Global repair
From cars to people, mind and body, clocks or guitars, the world at large or little local difficulties, let’s start 2019 by fixing up and looking sharp with skills and toolkits on this topic
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Superb lyrebird - sounds like everything else, but nothing sounds like it.
The topic over the Christmas holiday season is a form of convivial, parlour game in which pairs of songs can be nominated that share musical or other echoes - but which came first and where are the comparisons? You decide …
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Not so strange bedfellows: Eric and Ernie
The non-sexual, non-romantic sort is what makes up most of the love we experience in life, so whether that concerns real or fictional experiences, let’s define and explore it as expressed in song lyrics
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Guitar and singing legend Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Big flamboyant, expressive voices to call-and-response choirs, praise and looking for answers? This week we soul search into gospel’s musical styles infused into other genres, from soul to R&B, hip hop to rock, folk and indie
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The art of incongruity: This is Spinal Tap
This week we look at titles that appear to have nothing to do with the songs they signpost, using words that don’t appear in the lyrics, and seem to create an interesting and entertaining dissonance
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Three-dog night
Triangles and holy trinities, this week let’s explore the musical dynamic within groups in which three artists perform as a self-contained unit, not merely pop, jazz, classical, or folk, but across all all genres
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Hot shot Lou Reed
Lou Reed to Tom Waits, Susanne Sundfør to Sandy Denny, inspired by a salvo of superb nominations, this week’s chief arms officer Suzi shoots out in all contexts to hit the target with two sharp-shooting playlists
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Wild West guitar wiz Wilko Johnson
Bang bang! This week it’s time to find your range, come out with all guns blazing with songs about bullets, guns, cannons, bows and arrows. Gun culture arguments and more, let’s shoot from the hip
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No two walks are the same …
We all walk slightly differently, so this week it’s all about music that expresses various strolls, swings, swaggers, ambles or strides, and whether in politics or personal, marching bands or military, let’s capture the movement of the people
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The Devil does his thing in Tenacious D
Who’s your devil in disguise? Who has all he best tunes? This week, in a fun week leading up to Halloween, let’s explore songs that mention, in whatever form, the Devil, Satan and any other names he takes
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Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 200m medal ceremony, Mexico 1968
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
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Does this raise or lower the bar …?
Feeling on song? They may be derived from literature, media or historic, regular usage, but this week we’re looking how common phrases can jump out at you in lyrics, and ideally are used creatively or cleverly
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England is dreaming? … Who? Keith, Roger, Pete and John
Let’s take a musical trip around this strange, sceptr’d isle, this land of eccentric frontmen, this place of punk and flourishing fashion, to pick up lots of place names and perhaps also define the nature of being English
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Creative halves: Two Kings In A Cipher - DOP (Deric Angelettie) and the Noble Ahmen-Ra (Ron Lawrence)
How do you separate so many great nominated songs into two playlists? This week’s guest, ParaMhor, divided and conquered hundreds of suggestions into two brilliant divisions, from Beatles to Steely Dan
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Let’s dust off, or blow away the ‘oose’ of our vocabulary air some great words
This week let’s delve deep into the musical lexicon for instances where unusual, oddball, inappropriate, funny, pretentious, antiquated or obscure words jump out, sometimes working well, or otherwise
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Genuine lip syncers Milli Vanilli
Being true to yourself or others to genuine article in objects, this week we’re seeking songs that, in lyrics, are about searching for authenticity, but might sometimes find the opposite from forgery to falsehood, bootleg to bullshit
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Brief Encounter (1945)
Fleeting romance to brief encounters, the transient to the terse, the brusque to burnout, the concise or condensed, our time is limited on Earth, but there’s still enough to suggest songs on this universal subject
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Heading your way .. Julian Cope as Mr Squbbsy in London, 1990.
Eccentric historical figures to those who are currently out there, black sheep to persons offbeat, songs that express the outsider/insider paradox, this week let’s open our doors to songs about difference
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