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Playtime: Jacques Tati’s masterpiece about modern life (1967)
Strange, surreal, ironic, absurdity very much part of life, and absurdism is all about embracing the freedom with its meaninglessness. Exploring influences from Camus to Tati, Milligan to Python to Lynch, how is it expressed in music?
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Japanese gramophone puzzle
A two-fold topic: first we’re seeking songs that initially produce a mix of incomprehension, wonder, bafflement, bewilderment, mystification, and game-changer amazement, or those about puzzles themselves, jigsaws and other mental and physical solution-solving challenges
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Evel Knievel attempts to jump 13 buses in London, 1975. What could possibly go wrong?
Love, death, survival, creativity – at times they all seem impossible or insurmountable. After a seemingly inconceivable recent world history, it’s time to play with the idea of impossible in song, and work out what really is from what isn’t. Is it all down to perception?
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Better late then never?
It’s something attempted to be trained into us from school to to the work place, and appears to be both necessary, but perhaps also unnatural. This week it’s time to pin down the essence of punctuality in song, with all the tensions and consequences of being early or late
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The famous Grimm’s edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham
They fuelled the fevered imaginations of our childhoods, and contain many adult themes of love and lust, violence and identity, but how are these characters and narratives used in song? Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin …
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Tomorrow’s World - 1970s science TV programme from the past about the future
It’s linked to today and yesterday, but the anticipation or idea of tomorrow is the focus, and in this theme, not just word that appears somewhere in lyrics, but plays a central or prominent role or within it, expresses in many ways
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The march of progress …
There are different perspectives of looking at the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance of history. Cul-de-sacs to cowardly reverses, let’s explore songs where going backwards in life can be good, bad, or a mixture
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Correspondence captures time, place, culture and emotions …
Love letters to rejection replies, friendship, work or leisure, written correspondence are the preserved leaves of history, revealing human nature in all its states and culture, but how does it come up in songwriting? Reply here …
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Herd this? Non sequiturs are instrumental in this week’s musical zoo
Often poetic, strange, vivid, but definitely illogical, this week we explore lyrics that don’t really follow what preceded it, but somehow their meaninglessness masquerading as meaning, can also end up being something highly musical
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Cat on a fiddle.? Dashing dish? Hey diddle diddle, just about anything can happen this week
Their words and images are variously bizarre to banal, entrancing or exciting, rhythmical, repetitive, surreal, but also cruel and brutal, even utterly terrifying, and above all, powerfully manipulative and controlling. But how are they used in other songs?
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One mask, many articulate aliases, but mainly MF Doom
Nom de plume to nom de guerre, moniker, handle to sobriquet, this week let’s dig out songs that mention substitute names, from youth and the unknown to the famous, whether they come from affection, fear, pure description or hype
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It’s like dancing about architecture
Used in literature and everyday speech, it’s the verbal tool that compares one contrasting thing to another, by using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. But where do they come up in song lyrics, and where, ideally, are they effective and original?
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Cabinet meeting? Alice, Hatter, Dormouse, but who is that guy with the floppy ears? Read to find out more …
The table is set for tea, except not all is quite as it seems … guest playlister EnglishOutlaw explores the topsy-turvy, inside out and upside through a fictional Lewis Carroll universe, in lyrics and music, inspired by last week’s topic
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Antelope Slot Canyons, Arizona.
A rocky entrance to cool, calm caverns, deadly and beautiful tales of coal miners to digging dwarves, guest playlister takeitawayGuru, inspired by hundred of nominations, takes us on a fantastic underground musical journey
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What songs will be preserved in the ice and snow of this week's nominations?
Flakes that meander down to frozen formations, beautiful and deadly, used literally or metaphorically in emotions or landscapes, let's explore songs that preserving this water in lyrics and titles
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Someone's had a bad day … a rock star from 2010's Norwegian film triumph, Troll Hunter (director André Øvredal)
Dragons to fairies, griffins to Godzilla, ogres to orks, this week it's time to troll (in the old sense) for songs that mention non-human, or part-human fictitious animals from stories, poetry, art and other forms in many cultures
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Winter? It's cold, but it's all about warmth. I just thought penguins were too obvious ...
Snow, ice, frost, storms, survival, and darkness? Well, it’s not all bad. Hunker down in the Song Bar snug, and get cosy with the culture and wonders of a musical winter
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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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