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Crossing cultural boundaries: Ravi and daughter Anoushka Shankar
What’s that sound? It is most associated with a master of Indian classical, but this week we also explore how the sitar has crossed into western and other genres, including electric and electronic recreations
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All the big current seven on one postcard, but how many make it into view in songs, as well as many others?
Is it your lifetime ambition to visit them all? But what about those of the Ancient World, not longer around? Inspired by last week’s topic, guest playlister ShivSidecar takes us on a wonderful musical journey through time and geography …
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Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza
Ancient or modern, long gone or still standing, man-made or even natural, these sites are monuments that inspire universal awe and imagination, and bring us together. But how are they captured in song?
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What’s Gorn on here, then? Kirk and a famous old foe …
It’s time to boldly go beyond our planet to explore songs about and inspired by other planets, stars and galaxies, real or those of science fiction, and ideally those are imagined to be, or were once inhabited
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Aesop Rock, master of the mini sub-claws …
It’s a creative, freeflowing form that may well be as much crafted as straight from the imagination, but also one that distorts narrative and logic. Inspired by last week’s nominations, guest ajostu presents an associative, brainstorming set of lists with a real ‘vibe’
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A rare moment of peace for Marilyn Monroe’s restless mind - reading James Joyce’s Ulysses at Long Island, in 1955
It’s a literary narrative technique capturing our chaotic minds and random flow of thought processes, often with non-linear sense of time, free association, saturated with sensory experiences with strange rhythms, but how is it used in song?
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Iran has a long and rich musical culture
It’s a country constantly in the news, but also portrayed through a western lens. This week, it’s time to search for another Persian perspective through the prism of music and poetry for some golden discoveries …
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Time for some picks …
African to bluegrass, Haitian to jazz, classics to the unexpected, this resonant instrument has a long history. Guest of the week Uncleben brings the fast and the melodious in a set of fabulous picks inspired by last week’s topic
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Banjo player, 1856 by William Sidney Mount
It may immediately make you think of The Beverly Hillbillies or Deliverance, but this bright, resonant, plucky instrument has a long history with origins in another continent, and spans many stories, cultures and genres
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A carpet of cherry blossom
Fleeting but spectacular, their mutable beauty is annually inspirational, and with ideas budding from last week’s theme, guest of the week ParaMhor picks a splendid spread of musical colour
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Sakura saturation: a cherry blossom avenue
Their brevity very much integral to their beauty, they are simple yet also complex in their burst of colour. These flowers of stone fruit trees have been inspiration for artists, poets and songwriters for centuries
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Strait of Hormuz …
Filled with stories, history, myth, trade, and conflict, these potent stretches of water sometimes connect two seas or basins, continents, cultures and east and west, and are filled with danger. So how does song capture these many passages, channels and sounds?
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The incomparable Fela Kuti
Famous classical composers to a certain theoretic physicist, as well as a wealth of unusual skilled people, this week guest Loud Atlas takes a sparklingly talented turn picking playlists from from the latest topic and song nominations
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Elevation to a different level …
It’s unlucky for some, but for some, it’s the opposite. And fortunately it also inspired a wealth of song ideas and context in last week’s topic, boiling down to truly different and entertaining playlists picked by guest tincanman
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Christ on a bike! There’s always one …
Cultural counting as a figure of superstition and bad luck, it can also have other associations, but whether number, name, place, amount, date, age or more, this week it’s time find your significant thirteens in song as we head through a new Friday 13th
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Zeugma and more … Elvis Costello & The Attractions
It’s a figure of speech in which a word applies to two or more others in different senses, giving a concise form of wordplay. Inspired by last week’s topic nominations, guest playlister magicman picks out many sparkling examples and more
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The yoke’s on you, Dad …
On this celebration day of the written word, let’s embrace the many songs which lyrically use a word to govern two or more other words or phrases in a line or sentence. It comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "a yoking together". Time to pull out words and pints …
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Fancy a lift? Taxi balloons and more, satirising the trend for ‘lofty projects’ by George Cruickshank, 1825
Floating escape and adventure to crashing tragedy, this inflatable movement can bring delight and disaster. Inspired by last week’s topic, guest pejepeine picks perfect playlists to lift spirits and transport the musical imagination
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Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
From fragile gifts for children to party inflations, early hot air expeditions to the plight of dirigible blimps and zeppelins, balloons offer a profound literal and metaphorical set of emotions to fill the lungs of song
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… you’re in for a big surprise …
Aliens to unexpected identity, unusual sounds to strange artistic combinations as well as the lyrical subject itself, guest Marco den Ouden brings a box of brilliant surprises in response to our Big 10th Birthday Topic
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