Welcome to The Song Bar, a sociable establishment where visitors enthuse and share in their music tastes, indulge in civilised discussion and create playlists on a whole variety of subjects. Feel free to drop in anytime. We profile music new and old, but our main event is the song blog, where each Thursday a topic will be set, and readers around the globe nominate and recommend music on that theme, culminating in a playlist compiled by a guest writer on the following Wednesday.
So find yourself a seat, grab a drink, have a read and listen, and if you like it, join in ...
– Your friendly Landlord
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Latest from Themes & Playlists ...
Metaphors, narratives, figures of speech and a whole selection of objects that carry stories and emotions. With a vast range of styles and contexts, they are all inside the pocket of these playlists, as skilfully picked by guest ajostu from last week’s topic
They’re everyday but also precious, the portal to possessions, they reveal much about ourselves and our daily lives, as well as being an opening for many idioms and metaphors. But what’s in them, and now are they expressed in song?
Echoing syllables and words across history, the animal kingdom, cultures and genres, this poetic linguistic effect brought a bountiful and vibrant supply of nominations. Guest playlister Maki picks a poetic selection to capture their glory
Using common words or proper names of people, places, animals or more, this week we celebrate the echo in a phrase, where words are repeated, not just over and over, but to create an integrated new phrase where repetition is integral
LATEST FROM New Albums ...
New album: A very mature and promising debut by the London indie-pop singer-songwriter with a broad range of timbres, moods and dynamics, from breezy pop and rock to soulful, tender acoustic and a title track about a tragedy
New album: Delicate, minimalist, intimate, poetic and candidly beautiful folk indie by Dublin’s Conor J. O'Brien in a fifth LP gentler than the last, Fever Dreams, but bringing out the finest details in this stripped back release
New album: Gracefully ghostly, dream-like, sensual, gentle and deliciously paced, this fourth LP by the American singer-songwriter floats like a perfect timeless acoustic folky boat stirring ripples of wistful emotions, profoundly complex lines and vivid images
New album: After 2021’s acclaimed Afrique Victime album, the brilliant Tuareg guitarist and band band from Agadez, Niger, return with explosive, powerful, emotive numbers, impassioned songs about his culture and social wrongs, wrapped in a frenzy of drums, guitars, bass and vocals
New album: Luxuriant genre-spanning rock, pop, country and more in this debut by the Belfast old schoolfriend duo of Mollie McGinn and Orlaith Forsythe, with echoes of artists from Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Shania Twain, HAIM, as well as contemporaries CMAT, and The Last Dinner Party
Latest from New Songs …
Song of the Day: The Stockport, Greater Manchester indie-rockers return with a catchy new song about an apology, but also one that muses on songwriting formulas with a funk beat, with a comedic video set in the Derbyshire hills, football manager Sean Dyke and a classic campervan
Song of the Day: The now Lisbon-based British singer-songwriter returns with an engagingly original song about a “tit-for-tat, under-your-breath half-argument of the kind that happens in public” joined by half of Wet Leg on back vocals and a fabulous video directed by Matt Harris-Freeth
Song of the Day: With a unique delivery and distinctive cocktail of beats and interweaving vocal harmonies, the charismatic, eclectic Berlin-based, Austrian singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter returns with the opening from her new EP, Golden Days
Song of the Day: After 2022’s Mercury prize-winning album, Where I’m Meant To Be, the jazz and afrobeat quintet of drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso, bassist TJ Koleoso, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, and tenor saxophonist James Mollison return with a vibrant new single
Song of the Day: A fantastically vibrant, uplifting new single from the Ghanaian vocalist and djembe drummer and his band Afrik Bawantu, blending traditional music, Afrobeat grooves and funk in a song about dealing with life’s daily trials and tribulations
Latest from Word of the week …
Word of the week: Huge, gigantic, enormous, voracious or insatiable, this colourful adjective derives from the character in the pioneering 16th-century French prose writer François Rabelais’s multiple volume work, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Word of the week: An adjective with origins in the late 17th century meaning pointing or heading off in all directions – particularly as in the point of a compass, sometimes pertaining to geographical structure, or such as with an exploding firework
Word of the week: This beautifully strange, rhythmic, rhyming, onomatopoeic English word hails from the 18th century, meaning crumpled or gathered up, often pertaining to cloth or clothing, and deriving from the word for crease – a ruckle
Word of the week: This colourfully archaic English verb, thought to have origins in the Leeds and immediate Yorkshire area, means to shake or knock something violently
Word of the week: A tasteful word in a sense – but not, unfortunately, referring to any form of gentle, dental, melodic xylophone-style playing, but simply an 18th-century dialect word for chewing or mastication
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Frogs, toads, newts, salamanders, caecilians, and not forgetting the amazing axolotl, in literal or metaphorical contexts, myth or fairytale, sounds or more, these amazing creatures seem to straddle that subjective line between cute, creepy and ugly. But how to they leap up in song?