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A pearler of a song with a space filled by Mitski …
Empty vessels of all kinds a waiting for contents - heads, hearts, bottles, places and many more besides, with a truly fulfilling, insightful and entertaining result in playlists supplied by guest Nicko from last week’s topic theme
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This week is not a quiz, but these are among many kinds of blanks that might be filled …
A page or a canvas, a mind to facial expression, there are all sorts of blanks in life, but paradoxically they can be drawn into something very creative. This week it’s time to fill in the voids and spaces with songs on that subject
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The face of ecstasy: detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1652 sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Rome, and an acid house party in 1993
Whether its chemical and recreational to sexual, spiritual or even religious, music can take you back to an extraordinary high. This week’s theme a musical mood and feeling topic, but can also be a lyrical one …
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Gregory’s Girl (1980)
Distinctive smells, sights and stories, anxiety and awkwardness, comfort and routine, ambition and ordinariness, this week it’s time, after the holidays, to return to settings of routine and familiarity captured in song …
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Into the mix …
Midnight sun to marmalade skies, octarine to racing green, it’s a who’s who of hues - with guest playlister Loud Atlas mixes up inspiration from last week’s topic into something a shade different
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Fancy a game of colours? Vincent Van Gogh’s The Night Cafe, 1888
Alabaster, almond or amaranth, to zarqua, zinc or zomp? ‘Rhythm’ is also a colour name. This week it’s time to enjoy the music, poetry and imagery of obscure hues in lyrics. Feast your eyes and ears, and paint your imagination with suggestions …
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Who the Puck? A 1629 depiction of the traditional English and Celtic trickster
It’s everywhere in the modern world, particularly in politics, but the dark arts of the trickster have been around in folklore and mythology for thousands of years, so a starting point, let’s back to go forward …
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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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Where will choices strike for this week’s lists?
One strike ncan remind us that nature is really boss, and for a songwriter, thunder and lightning can signify and express many meanings and emotions. Picked from last week’s topic nominations, guest ajostu’s playlists will go down a storm
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Here it comes …
Dramatic, extreme, they always come as a pair, if with delayed arrival, and may be a backdrop, or an expression of stormy relationships, a high charge of emotions, or of inspiration, change, turmoil or chaos, but it can also bring a state of cosy comfort
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À la Mod: a key book written in 1964 (before today’s Generation X were actually born) by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett that influenced the likes of British punk Billy Idol and later the Canadian author Douglas Coupland …
The Lost, the Silent, the Greatest, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y (Millennials), Gen Z, then Alpha and Beta, the last 125 years have generational labels now increasingly used in our language and culture. But what are their traits, and how are they reflected in song lyrics or even music?
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Heavy metal to heavy mammal. One Ozzy departs, another arrives: A namesake southern white rhino, here with mother, was born the day Ozzy Osbourne died on 22 July
It’s a musical menagerie: land, sea or air, mammals, birds, amphibians, marsupials, tragic tales of destruction to near extinction, but also heroic conservation, it’s time to highlight creatures under threat but featuring in song
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Where would stars be without the dark…?
It’s a vast spectrum of a topic that occupies half of Earth’s rotation, filled with emotions, stories, assocations, and styles. With the recent death of one famous rock figure, what other forms of darkness come to mind in song?
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Cultured vultures: The Jungle Book brings about surprise levels of support via the medium of song
This Bar creates them too, but what about songs in playlists? From assorted human and animal encounters, generational pals to cultural social crossovers, guest Loud Atlas brings them all together in wonderful entertainment inspired by last week’s topic
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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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A world united? Live Aid, 13th July 1985
It will be 40 years ago this weekend. An extraordinary event and background story, and a global sense of positivity, but what did all mean then, and now? To mark the anniversary, let’s celebrate and reflect with this theme
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James Stewart is one of several hanging out at the Bar this week …
Mixing memory and desire, situations, faces, sounds and experiences, it’s a common psychological experience of misplaced memory. But how is it expressed in song, and what others induce that feeling?
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João and Astrud Gilberto
Evolving from Brazilian samba and in parallel with jazz, it’s a sound of lifestyle and emotions, distilling sadness with hope, elegance with passion. Guest pejepeine brings all of this and more in exquisite playlists inspired by last week’s topic
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From the 1959 film Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), a key year for bossa nova …
It’s time to source and serve out this charming, cool Brazilian rhythmic genre that began in the 1950s, whether it’s songs by the original artists, with different twists and mixes, as well as in many later songs it has flavoured
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