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Perhaps these steps will lead you to the right key …
Steep, sweeping, stone, wood or metal? This week we're exploring how music give us a certain kind of lift – through lyrics that describe all ways to up or down, on foot or via mechanical means, actual or metaphorical
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Recycled plastic beach sculpture in Rio
It’s multi-shaped, everywhere, and incredibly flexible and versatile, but it’s also an eco nightmare. But how is it represented in song? Fake, cheap, inferior, comical, colourful or weirdly fashionable? Time for a straw poll …
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Last four couples in a 1930s dance marathon
We’re not leaving, but showing endurance, fortitude and steadfastness. There’s a whole lot of staying power going on in this week’s topic, from physical to mental strength …
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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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The astonishing Marble cave, in Rio Tranquilo, Brazil.
This week it's time to dig deep in your record collections for find all things subterranean, whether that's in the beauty of natural geology, to man-made caverns or even the metaphorical underground
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NHS founder Nye Bevan visits Park Hospital, Davyhulme, Manchester, in 1948.
This week we’re giving it the special treatment to mark the NHS 70th anniversary, but also looking for music that mentions any kind of medical care, especially nursing, and its emotional effect in lyrics
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The real thing or substitutes? The Beatles at Madame Tussauds
Are they meant to be better, or not as good, artificial or the real thing? From sport to food, people to plans, work to worries and distraction, let’s explore substitutions in life and music
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Meeting of metaphor or the literal? Well, it's all a question of scale …
No, it’s not the World Cup. Or is it? This week let’s delve into music’s interpretation of the murky world of imagined or otherwise undercover plots from Roswell to JFK, 9/11 to Russian interference, and er … lizards
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How does Two Suns end up? Bat For Lashes is joined by Scott Walker
Where will it all end? With medicine, moonlight, sleep or a starship? All of these and much more, as our guest playlist writer ParaMhor picks two superb sets of conclusions to hundreds of nominated songs
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Sunset ending? Not every ride goes so smoothly …
No – it’s not the World Cup. This week we’re looking at all kinds of ends of albums and other songs – from surprising, sudden, or summing up, to those that are ambiguous, serious, comical or take us to a new place
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Louis Armstrong liked a good blow now and then
Mary Jane to hash, pot to pipes, it's time to take a toke on songs that hit on this long-established recreational drug and painkiller, from its many names to the effect it has on mind, society and music
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London Olympic Stadium, 2012. An internet message, but does it also help define music-making culture this century?
This week we’re looking for songs or instrumentals recorded since 2000 that help define what the first 18 years of this century are all about: genres, landmarks, movements, trends, sounds and fusions
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Altogether now ....
The lyrics are about dark matters, but they are played with extremely contrasting upbeat music. This week let’s explore songs that, through stark contrast, can unlock humour, tragedy, comedy and empathy
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Cassettes? What a carry on.
Travelling to shopping, fashion houses to homeless hobos, suitcases to handbags, briefcases to guitar cases, bags are the performer’s constant companion carried out in many songs, but it’s also about the contents …
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The Immortal Jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, which can reverse the life cycle process
Gods to vampires, myth to religion, nature to the supernatural, or simply need to preserve yourself in song, this week we explore that age-old obsession with living forever, or at least a mighty long time
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Neneh Cherry's taking a confident Buffalo Stance
From the plucky and cocky to the bold and brave, Beyonce to Blondie, Sparks to Stevie Wonder, this week’s guest Severin has picked two superb playlists from the nominations that will have your striding down the street
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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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The Boswell Sisters
Armstrong and Astaire to the Boswell Sisters and Al Bowlly, Whispering Jack Smith to Sarah Vaughan, this week's guest playlist writer DiscoMonster digs out many a treasure in a golden age of discovery
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The silver-tongued Cole Porter entertains friends in the 1940s
Tin Pan Alley to the Great American Songbook, blues, jazz standards, show tunes, gospel or folk, this week we escape the modern era to find songs of exemplary craft, performance or pertfectly capture their era
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The paradise tanager, an exotic songbird
Cuckoos to chickens, geese to gulls, a host of exotic birds and ascending on high with the lark and nightingale, this week's aural aviary expert Hoshino Sakura spies a beautiful set of musical calls from last week's topic
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