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Alice Cooper waves the election banner
Song of the Day: In the wake of the most vital mid-term US elections in a generation, the 1972 rock song that is often wheeled out on these occasions, but less known is that it is a reworking of an earlier song, Reflected
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Dread rocker Lenny Kravitz
Song of the Day: After Arctic Monkeys taxi rank scenes in Sheffield night-life, a double header focusing on the drivers with a dismissive attitude and different attempts to hail them on either side of the pond
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Waiting for a cab? Arctic Monkeys in their early days, with frontman Alex Turner, second from right
Song of the Day: After Jens Lekman’s quiet, contemplative black cab ride, a riot of vivid images and late-night chaos clambering into a taxi in Sheffield with Alex Turner and co from their 2006 debut album
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Pub perfection: Chas Hodges on piano, with Dave Peacock on bass
Song of the Day: Moving from Otis Redding to a rolling rockney number may seem unlikely, but it’s a fitting tribute on the passing of pianist and singer Chas Hodges with this song’s strong melody and seamlessly emotional key changes
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The Animals may have done the best-known cover version, but there are arguably others than better it
To some it’s a masterpiece, to others a dirge, but from 17th century England to 20th century New Orleans, with artists that include Woody Guthrie, Nina Simone, The Animals and alt-J it’s a song that keeps evolving
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Suicide's Alan Vega and Martin Rev in 1979
Song of the Day: The dream goes on, but where might it lead next? Reaching into the power of nightmares and fantasies, an original by the US electro-punk duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev from 1979 and two contrasting covers
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My Bloody Valentine in their earlier days
Song of the Day: Another sleep-themed song, not so much evoked by lyrics, but by the extraordinarily loud but also woozy sound of the band headed by Kevin Shields and his innovative tremolo guitar technique
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From the cover of Bringing It All Back Home, Bob Dylan's fourth album (1965)
Song of the Day: Some songs for Independence Day are patriotic, others heavily critical, but this American dream number sees the then great young lyricist capture his country with surreal, vivid, humorous irony
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From the album cover of The Soft Machine (1968), featuring Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and Mike Ratledge
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Ray Davies soaring sleep song performed by Marion, a more psychedelic take on different levels of consciousness by those Canterbury pioneers from their first album of 1968
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Ye Nuns
Song of the Day: After yesterday's songs about the beatified Joan of Arc, another Catholic and military connection, but with a twist – a cover band performing a new song written specially for them by a member of the band they cover
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Suede in 1994
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Auteurs track mixing the premature deaths of Lenny Bruce and Rudolph Valentino, two more from the 90s Britpop pioneers about two more stars who died young – Marilyn Monroe and James Dean
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Mattiel
Song of the Day: Today's entry comes from the the singer-songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia, who is a designer by day and a performer by night, and here her rock-pop-soul songs reflect this, making multiple reference to colours
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An original single cover for Street Fighting Man (1968)
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Fast Fuse by Kasabian, a track that also quickly fires up passions, and is highly influential – recorded 50 years ago during an unprecedented period of demonstrations and riots
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From the cover of Kasabian's West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Parquet Courts number about an edgy temper, another about inflammatory anger by the Leicester indie rockers from their 2009 album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
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Bodega
Song of the Day: It's a question many ask in the current state of world affairs, but this terrific song by the New York band manages to pose political questions and still be enormously engaging in both music and lyrics
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Flat Worms: playing fast as greyhound
Song of the Day: After the exuberant joy of The Damned's New Rose, we move four decades forward to an equally blistering sound from the LA post-punk trio with a song that has a similar theme
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Louis XiV, featuring frontman Jason Hill (second from left)
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Arctic Monkeys after sun-down, sleazy sex-industry number, we cross the Atlantic again to go down and dirty with with the band from San Diego from their 2005 album The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
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Arctic Monkeys in 2006
Song of the Day: Following the Libertines and the Strokes, this Anglo-American sequence now brings us to the young Sheffield quartet's second single from their debut album of 2006: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
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The Strokes
Song of the Day: After yesterday's sun-related song by the Libertines, we move to the Strokes - but the connection is less a play on words, more of a musical one, and how influential the New York band on their contemporaries with this first single from 2001
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The Libertines in 2003
Song of the Day: Possibly the shining pinnacle of the indie rock quartet's repertoire this 2003 never appeared on an album, but a searing anthem to a refreshing new postpunk English sound
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