Song of the Day: After yesterday's Malcolm Middleton songs, let's dip into two by his old Arab Strap friend Aidan Moffat, here joining with Bill Wells, fellow songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with two dark and humorous numbers
Read moreMalcolm Middleton – The Ballad of Fuck All / Somebody Loves You
Song of the Day: After yesterday's tribute to Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, let's move to another great Scottish singer-songwriter who mixes dark matters with wry humour but also deep emotions
Read moreFrightened Rabbit – Floating In The Forth / Death Dream / Die Like A Rich Boy
Song of the Day: A change of pace today with a three-song tribute to Scott Hutchison, frontman and sublime songwriter of the band from Selkirk and Glasgow, who sadly passed away this week aged just 36
Read moreMinnie Riperton – Les Fleur
Song of the Day: After our previous Manchester late-80s dance tracks, when flower power returned with a new chemical twist, we hark back to another petal-infused and influential song by the vocalist linked to our previous Rotary Connection selection
Read moreI Am Kloot – Northern Skies
Song of the Day: A sublimely reflective and beautiful song that finds clarity and beauty beyond the foggy nebula of dark cloud cover, written and sung by John Bramwell for the 2010 album Sky At Night
Read moreThe Magnetic Fields – Love Is Like A Bottle of Gin
Song of the Day: 'Love is ...' here perhaps less a song, more a poetic, wry, extended metaphor, but still a lugubrious bit of loveliness from The Magnetic Fields' 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs
Read morePeggy Seeger – I'm Gonna Be An Engineer
Song of the Day: A special song for International Women's Day, sung by a very special woman, with brilliant lyrics all about fighting against the conditioning, prejudice and stereotyping of gender and inequality
Read moreJohnny Cash – Hurt
Song of the Day: Our last song focused on dealing with teenage depression. Today, in one of his greatest career moments, Johnny Cash's cover addresses this in the autumn of his years, but also so much more
Read moreGenesis – Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
Song of the Day: Moonlight, eccentricity and experimental obscurity have very much been the direction of SOTD recently, and so it's time to unashamedly progressively rock on to Peter Gabriel's old band at their finest – when he still led it
Read moreMoondog – Lament I, Bird's Lament / Moondog Monologue
Song of the Day: After Captain Beefheart, could there be any musical figure more influential, eccentric, strange and innovative? Louis Thomas Hardin, aka the Viking figure who for years silently stalked New York's 6th Avenue, is a strong contender
Read moreLaura Gibson – Empire Builder / Two Kids
Song of the Day: Continuing from our last entry, by Aldous Harding, another vocalist with a special form of melancholy, with work from the American artist's fourth solo album, Empire Builder, 2016
Read moreAldous Harding – Elation / Imagining My Man
Song of the Day: Another sublime voice, and here two songs from the New Zealander, whose voice coils out in a still, acoustic guitar and piano, and reveals raw, intimate emotions awash with melancholic black humour
Read moreMidlake – Acts of Man / Roscoe
Song of the Day: To kick off the new year proper, two beautifully wintry and otherworldly album openers from the Texan folk rock band, both of which take a broad, historic perspective
Read morePete Seeger – Little Boxes
Song of the Day: A Boxing Day special - less about putting your gifts into boxes, but the boxes people put themselves into, with a satirical song performed by Seeger, but originally written by the folk singer Malvina Reynolds in 1962
Read moreFleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal / Third of May / Ōdaigahara
Song of the Day: Moving into new fox territory, let's enjoy two powerful and emotionally charged tracks spanning the career so far of the Seattle indie folk band that exemplify their distinctive vocal harmony style
Read moreDeer Tick – Art Isn't Real / Let's All Go To The Bar
Song of the Day: Following on from our hooves, animal, and body parts band theme, we turn to two very contrasting tracks, from the versatile Rhode Island band who have variously been described as anything between alt-country and punk
Read moreThe Mountain Goats – Rain in Soho
Song of the Day: With 16 studio albums since 1994, so many interesting, varied and clever songs to choose from the California indie-folk band fronted by John Darnielle, but how about this goth parody from 2017?
Read moreKevin Morby – Dorothy / I Have Been To The Mountain
Song of the Day: Two splendidly uplifting tracks from the 2016 album Singing Saw by the American singer-songwriter, born in Kansas but living in Brooklyn
Read moreClem Snide – I Love The Unknown
Song of the Day: Among the Boston alt-country band's greatest songs, taken from their mischievously titled second album of 1999, Your Favorite Music, and written by singer Eef Barzelay, it trips along with a sensitive, wistful, lazily-paced beauty
Read moreWalter Schumann – Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly (from Night of the Hunter)
Song of the Day: Another musical echo of eery beauty from yesterday's Nature Boy, an extraordinary song with a strange, soaring melody, in a equally otherworldly scene in a brilliant film directed by Charles Laughton
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