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Vivian and the crew …
In words or notes, from dark parody to the plain old silly, it’s time to celebrate comedic songs, those written specifically to tickle, to amuse, to make you smile and laugh. If they do that, then they count
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Long player: A young Diego Maradona enjoying one of his other hobbies, 1980
At the zenith of the season, with tournaments ending and beginning, let’s pass our attention to the beautiful game, skill, artistry, eccentricity, but also history, culture, with metaphors, and hopefully avoiding the bad songs, the goal is dig deep into music from around the world …
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Peoples Temple leader Reverend Jim Jones in his classic shades at an anti-eviction rally in San Francisco in 1977 with Rev. Cecil Williams
From the divine to the ridiculous, they’ve accompanied others’ lives from birth to marriage and death, stand for moral guidance but sometimes go badly astray, but are fascinatingly charismatic, flawed and human. With inspiration here from real life to film and fiction, how are they captured in song?
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Leaps of imagination …
Witty, mischievous absurdity, hairy hopelessness, irrelevant incidents, or audible anticlimax and a pointless punchline? It’s time to examine the art of tall storytelling in song. Enjoy some examples in comedy and literature here, but how will your suggestions end up?
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Playing it straight? It’s all about timing with Laurel and Hardy in Saps At Sea (1940)
What’s their chemistry? Creative or romantic, adventurous or anarchic, real or fictional, who gets a prominent lyrical or titular appearance in a song, ideally where they are the primary focus rather just a passing mention?
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Of all the bars ….
What’s your line, from chat-ups to marriage proposals that appear in the lyrics or tenets of songs? This is not just love songs in general, but must contain lines with some ice-breaking approach, declaring attraction or more, with the most immediate short- or longer-term intentions
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Hot on the horizon: The Meitan Tea Museum in Guizhou Province, China stands more than 70 metres in height
The routine, the ceremony, the warming up, the cooling down, the flavour, the comfort, the refreshment and everything that goes with it. This week we’re brewing up and leafing through our music collections …
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It’s our Fifth Birthday. Take a slice …
Five years! To celebrate, this special topic is both literal and metaphorical, the mechanism that makes us click, capturing the magic of the coin-operated machine that expresses our bar-based love of music in song choices
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Meeting of metaphor or the literal? Well, it's all a question of scale …
No, it’s not the World Cup. Or is it? This week let’s delve into music’s interpretation of the murky world of imagined or otherwise undercover plots from Roswell to JFK, 9/11 to Russian interference, and er … lizards
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Planet of the Apes. Already happened or may yet occur? Still a gobsmacking idea.
Songs of regret, in retrospect or about the 'if only'? This week we look at lyrics that imagine other pasts, presents or futures caused by different decisions, actions, circumstances and chains of events
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From the cover of The Slits' guitarist Viv Albertine's book Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014)
Let me tell you a story … this week we're looking for songs that capture the narrative or arc of a person's life, about themselves or others, famous or unknown, whether that's in the first or third person
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Frank Zappa chez parents' living room
Bluesy bathrooms to calypso kitchens, Britpop bedrooms to lovers rock lounges, whether big or small, green or blue, closet or cloister, suggest yours to create a whole building of musical adventure
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A few of Manchester's famous faces …
As a tribute to the dead, the injured, and all those affected by the Manchester Arena bombing, this week let's suggest songs that capture the culture, character, accents, humour and history of this city
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Eleven? That's one louder.
From soft to loud in vivid variety, this week we look into musical works that test our headphones and master the control of decibel and frequency, bringing subtlety and surprises to our ears
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If I had a hammer ...
From hand-held hammering to skilful sawing, sewing, screwing, or searching, take a good look in your musical shed for top tool-related tunes and place them in the suggestion box below
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Mr Benn. Artful master of weekly self-renewal or bored man in a constant crisis?
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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Primates are also known to laugh ... at humans
It's not just the best medicine, it also appears in songs, as the subject matter or spontaneously sounding within it. So let's roll of the barrel, and serve up a hearty party of laughter-based music …
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Marguerite ... singing in the key of life
Hard-luck humour to human frailty, comedy compassion to sentimental sadness, suggest songs that inspire this complex mix of feelings stirred up in lyrics, setting or performance
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I'm Terry Wogan? The opening lyric of one of Chaka's biggest hits. Photograph Peter Tea
Why did the Bee Gees like steak and a knife? Is Duffy obsessed with birdseed? And why do it in the road with the Beatles. This week indulge in creative lyrical earslips and a whole load of other lovely nonsense
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