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Playing along? A hypnosis entertainment poster from 1900
From medical, curative, psychological and mystical to magical, illusionary entertainment hypnotists and subliminal suggestibility, this week it’s time to go under and come back with song on the mesmerisers, mesmeric and mesmerised
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Selling out? Who’s up for it?
‘Tis the season to be funny or serious, satirical, cerebral or sensual, simple or complex, abstract or expressive, imaginative and ingenious in suggesting songs for existing or fictional products that could appear in ads that don’t exist
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Hyde and seek: it wasn’t me, it was him …
Will with the conscious and subconscious play out? Inspired by the theories of Freud, but mostly by all the nominations from last week’s topic, guest picker Loud Atlas presents an engaging inner dialogue explaining his excellent choices
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Freud’s famous paper was published exactly a century ago
It’s time to wrestle with the conflicts and complexities of the conscious and sub-conscious mind captured in song lyrics. From that famous paper published by Freud a century ago, there’s also inspiration here in film, literature, comedy, musicians and more …
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From Salvador Dalí’s The Seven Lively Arts: The Art of the Concert
Trip up, or down? Hallucinogens, amphetamines, barbiturates and more, it’s time to feel stimulated and inspired by a big creative subject in the world of music, with songs about and expressing the ups and downs and experience of taking illicit, recreational drugs
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Barbarella tries the musical ‘Excessive Machine’
Expressed in lyrics literally, euphemistically and metaphorically, or in the sheer sound the music or delivery of voice, promises of, or the act itself, few things concentrate the mind and body more. So how to they come together in song? First, enjoy a brief social history of the orgasm by hitting this button …
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The monarch butterfly: a profound life cycle, and ‘a rainbow of chaos’
It’s a big question. But how might it be answered in song lyrics? Not merely through broad definition or metaphor, but also through philosophy, practical advice or experience. See many inspirational ideas here, but it’s also time to let your answers take flight …
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Greta Garbo - a singular inspiration for many a song
Welcome to the special Song Bar Singles Night, where, with the help of many special guests who chat freely on the subject, we seek songs on the ups and downs of the single state, from loneliness to blissful solitude, dating and even giving yourself a helping hand …
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JJ Johnson
From classical to Dixieland to New Orleans early jazz, swing, big band, bebop to modern jazz, pop, funk, rock and more, it’s time to bone up, slide in and have a blast with your suggestions on this great, often unheralded instrument
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We’re normal … The Bonzos
Regular? Standard? Stereotype? Average? Typical? Natural? What does normal mean, and how might it be explored in song lyrics? From people to behaviour, families to jobs to towns, and any other context, it’s all a matter of perspective
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Either/or? Reflections on more than one thing at once
Lyrics, people, behaviour, situations, morals, images, and sound, ambiguity is an essential part of all art. This week we delve into all sorts of types, enjoying the balance of nuance and different, oscillating meanings as shown in songs
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Wild West guitar wiz Wilko Johnson
Bang bang! This week it’s time to find your range, come out with all guns blazing with songs about bullets, guns, cannons, bows and arrows. Gun culture arguments and more, let’s shoot from the hip
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Paws for thought: is confidence is what you see in yourself?
It's cleverer and sexier than brains or beauty. Musicians and performers have it spades – but in equal measure to insecurity. So this week let's explore songs all about wanting it, getting it, using it or losing it
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Awkward … your life in their hands. May, Trump and poor old Washington
Mass campaigns to crowd manipulation, political U-turns to personal deception, suggest songs about the art and artifice of changing facts for dubious or other purposes, but here to make truthful playlists
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