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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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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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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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Guitar licks …
A staple of our diet, contained in the body, but also necessary be restocked for health, sodium chloride has thousands of uses, and has been a human obsession for centuries, seeping in our language, but how is it served up in song?
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Falling yet floating? Frozen gravity …
Mass attraction? Or falling in love? This week it’s a fusion of science and art topic, with lyrical fact or metaphor, as we examine one of the most vital and biggest physical interactive forces in our lives (but oddly the weakest of the science big four). But how will this float up or fall in the world of song?
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Red Cormorant Woman, Olive Oatman and Biddy Mason from the history – Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West, by Katie Hickman (2022)
It’s a word that summons up a rich history of tough trails across the American west, but also of key figures in many other fields, from science and medicine to space, politics and civil rights to music and art. To it’s time to capture all sides of breaking new ground …
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Hot-dog! Fingers ‘n’ everything …
This week, from a previous idea of nothing, we go to ‘everything’ not literally, but the idea of it, from big promises of love, all-encompassing importance, the the whole shebang, totality, the full caboodle, enchilada, the big ball of wax, all within the prism of song
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Belly up? Billie Eilish contemplates some big ones in her video for Bad Guy
It’s our second ‘brain’ a part of the body that rules us more than we think. Whether in literal or metaphorical lyrics, it’s time to pull in or push out, in the form of song suggestions. Inspired by gut feelings, intestines, belly buttons and cultural and scientific inspiration here …
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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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Musical minerals?
Music is indisputably good for you, but how is this expressed in song, for improvement of mood, brain and body? Firstly this might come up lyrics, but also this topic can get more subjective and more impressionist with songs that really hit the spot
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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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Right place at the right time come into focus …
Moments of realisation? From scientific to practical, physical, emotional, philosophical or spiritual, expressed in one lyrical line, one musical rush, or building slowly, and then suddenly and unexpectedly coming into focus in song
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Float your ideas, and nevermind the cost. From the Nirvana album …
For crying out loud. This week’s topic is all about those beautiful and cute bundles of joy that we all once were, miracles of wide-eyed wonder as well as guzzling, selfish, exhausting, sleep-sapping, puking bags of expensive energy extraction
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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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Maya Angelou: “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”
I feel for you. Reach out and I’ll be there. This week we’re seeking song-related understanding and connection the form of songs about empathy, and though it’s different perhaps also little secondary sympathy, in form or content
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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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Where will lightning strike in this week’s playlists?
Ancient lightning gods and rods to pioneers of current, this week’s bright spark EnglishOutlaw connects nature, history and scientific experiment into musical form with playlists inspired by last week’s electrifying topic
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Join us … the joint is jumpin’
… as well as knuckles, ankles, shoulders and any other key bendy and swivelling bits of the body, human or otherwise. It's all about making connections, and freedom of movement …
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Don't be alarmed. Something to whet the whistle, darling?
From gloom to horny joy, scary or strange surprises to dire straits, this week let's explore all the lyrical and musical sides of regain consciousness in song, with some stimuli here from other forms – film and books
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Who, what, where shall we go this week?
This week it's time to set the musical controls - to suggest songs that about time travel in the sci-fi sense, but also those that might move to another period in past or future in metaphor, memory and the imagination
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