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History’s geniuses often highlight the men …
We all have some, but what are they and will we really use them? From the gifted and natural to the grafted and learned all the way to the greatest and famous, it’s time to highlight amazing human skills as referenced in lyrics
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Reflections on a musical fountain …
Spurting ornate symbols of eternity, youth, health and good fortune, some for drinking others just decoration, they’ve been a feature in villages, towns and cities for thousands of years, and some can be programmed to dance to music. How are they expressed in song lyrics?
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A commemorative model of Apollo-Soyuz on 17th July 1975
To commemorate the Apollo-Soyuz space link up, exactly 50 years ago today, on 17th July 1975, let’s celebrate strange, unusual bonds of friendship in song lyrics and shake hands with the unexpected …
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Grow the chain …
Everything’s linked, but this week we get more specific, literally or in metaphor on these metal or other material sets of serial bindings, all they pulling, confining, binding or joining, on any scale …
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‘Fearful symmetry’? More to reflect on …
It’s pleasing to ear and eye, verbally, musically and rhythmically, so let’s seek songs with forms of lyrical antimetabole, the repetition of one or more words in successive clauses, but a transposed order
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Allons enfants! It’s time for those anthems, but with a deeper look, as the Paris Olympics opens and celebrates its centenary
As the 2024 Paris Olympics opens, we examine the strange nature of the national anthem, for better or worse, not merely in versions thereof, but also songs and works which feature clips or renditions, or lyrically reference or talk about the concept itself even in more general terms
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Rogues’ gallery, some of the many …
Notorious, violent, controlling, paranoid, ruthless, and excessive, history is filled with them, their rise supported by the fear and apathy. Constantly a threat, from history to the present and future, what are their traits, and how are they portrayed in song?
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Psych is always on the move …
Delay, fuzz, distortion, flanger, echo, sitars, and mind-altering drugs? It’s a style chiefly associated with the late-60s but what are it’s key characteristics and where else do they come up in the world of music? Let’s go on a journey through time and space …
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It’s a cover-up. Australian Michael O’Brien goes for a famous bet on exposure at Twickenham in 1974. Strangely Christ-like?
Ancient art to modern exposure, Emperor’s New Clothes to strippers, streakers and various performers, exposed souls in songwriting, what is the different between naked and nude, and how does it express itself in song? All revealed here and more
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Some activities are rarer than others … Thomas Rowlandson’s satirical work of 1811
Looking up or down, from sights of rare astrological bodies to unusual encounters with unusual or unique people or events, from birth to death, it’s time to capture the rare in song form, from personal or universal perspectives
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A bigger splash: humpback whale breach
Cetaceans are dolphins, whales and porpoises – familiar yet mysterious, those large, intelligent water mammals that have inspired oceans of songwriters, but in what way? On freedom, tragedy, slaughter, or wondrous, otherworldly sounds?
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Forever falling upwards down MC Escher’s stairs
How to we capture or express it? Through love, art, death, heaven, hell or other forms? Particularly song. This week’s largely lyrical topic ponders on the forever, the permanent, the endless and goes to infinity and beyond …
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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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Hum that tune …
Birds to insects, bats and angels to Icarus and aeroplanes, myth and reality, metaphor and literal, it’s time to let your musical imagination take flight and soar with the senses in songs that feature these supreme super-limbs in lyrics
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Red and white Rosa Osiria
Romance, death, pain or beauty, petals or thorns? In titles or lyrics of song, literal or metaphor, as symbols or even as names, including also instrumentals, it’s time to gather musical blooms inspired by this particular flower
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Now they all come together …
They’re big, and fierce, and beautiful; unpredictable, wild and exhilarating. And that’s not just those big, stripy cats. We’re also talking about this amazing ambush of playlists, picked from a wild jungle of brilliant suggestions by guest Severin
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Welcome to the Bar, says the Siberian
As myth or monster, pet or predator, symbol of beauty, death or power, tigers fire the imagination with their looks and behaviour. But how do they spring out of the musical jungle, literally or metaphorically?
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Don’t kid yourself. Secret necking …
Cheatin’ hearts to stray cats, liars and game players, this week it’s all about the drama, dalliances, the deceit, the sexy secrecy and risk, the partial or unfolding perspectives, repression, sacrifice, romance or the full tragic, explosive reveal
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Leading actors, but is the evening leading them? Thompson and Hopkins in The Remains of The Day (1993)
As dusk falls, and the day changes clothing, there’s something about the light fade and mood. This week we are all about the evening, after work, and songs that mark that time in emotions, activities, sights and sounds
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Jimi Hendrix sandcastle. It was bound to appear here eventually
This week’s lyrical topic offers a broad, varied landscape of metaphor and colour, of passing time, of instability and mutability, of the solid and the fluid, of the barren and the beautiful. Let’s dig deep for some treasures …
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