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Stephin Merritt and friend
Song of the Day: 'Love is ...' here perhaps less a song, more a poetic, wry, extended metaphor, but still a lugubrious bit of loveliness from The Magnetic Fields' 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs
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Roxy Music, 1975 vintage.
Song of the Day: Continuing, in between an celebrity death, our mini-theme of 'love is' songs, a hot-to-trot stomper from Bryan Ferry and co from the band's fifth album Sirens in 1975
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Stephen Hawking 1942-2018. Cosmologist, theoretical physicist, humourist
Song of the Day: How best to pay tribute to one of the most intelligent men in history, one mentioned in the same breath as Einstein? With a silly cosmic song of course, taken from the Meaning of Life
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Anyone got a backscratcher for The Supremes?
Song of the Day: Continuing the 'Love is Like" theme from yesterday, something to refresh the musical palate with a thumping classic from Diana Ross and co, penned by the timeless Holland-Dozier-Holland
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Ken Dodd's first of 19 chart hits was this tender tenor number in 1960
Song of the Day: What a perfect day, alongside hailing the tickling stick and five-hour shows, to say that the sadly departed comedian was also a huge 1960s pop star – and his first hit reveals a surprisingly beautiful tenor voice
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Peter Allen. Enjoying it both ways.
Song of the Day: After yesterday's funky Janelle Monáe number about bisexuality, let's turn back the clock to 1980, and a different disco funk pop hit from an Australian who used a cheeky geographical metaphor
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Janelle Monáe
Song of the Day: It's Saturday, time to get a little bit sexy, and bang up to date with a brand new number that might remind you of someone? Yes Prince did indeed help US singer and rapper Monáe with this before he left us.
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Singer, songwriter, banjo player and quite possibly engineer too – Peggy Seeger
Song of the Day: A special song for International Women's Day, sung by a very special woman, with brilliant lyrics all about fighting against the conditioning, prejudice and stereotyping of gender and inequality
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Aretha Franklin, of course
Song of the Day: Continuing our woman-man perspective mini-theme, a sublime moment from among the greatest of all voices with a song to stir anyone's emotions
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The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Stevie Winwood
Song of the Day: After yesterday's Helen Reddy track, let's compare that brave feminist anthem to a similar-era powerful man cry, performed here with Hammond-heavy brilliance by Stevie Winwood and co from 1967
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Helen Reddy
Song of the Day: Following from yesterday's Japanese celebration song Girls' Day - Hina Maturi - a truly empowering number by the US-Australian singer to go alongside #March4Women running up to International Women's Day
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Japanese dress up to parade and celebrate Hina Matsuri
Song of the Day: One of our regular readers, Hoshino Sakura, who lives in Japan, takes a turn on SOTD to choose a special song to mark a festival that highlights the rights and importance of women
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Napoleon XIV, aka Jerry Samuels
Song of the Day: We conclude a mini-series of upbeat songs about mental health with perhaps the most bizarre of all, a 1966 novelty hit song by the producer and singer songwriter Jerry Samuels
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Syd Barrett
Song of the Day: Continuing our sequence of songs around the theme of mental health, the oddball, hallucinogenic opener from the last solo album by the founder of Pink Floyd, released in 1970
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The Move, featuring the moustachioed Roy Wood, in 1968.
Song of the Day: Moving on from Johnny Cash's Hurt, we return to an upbeat, colourful song about mental health problems, penned by the eccentric Roy Wood, who later of course, became a hirsute star of Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard
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Johnny Cash. Still in pain, but with great dignity
Song of the Day: Our last song focused on dealing with teenage depression. Today, in one of his greatest career moments, Johnny Cash's cover addresses this in the autumn of his years, but also so much more
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Cat Power aka Chan Marshall
Song of the Day: Following Go-Kart Mozart's wonderfully chirpy songs about doleful poverty and adult depression, we turn to a aka Chan Marshall's song addressed at a teenager feeling down from online bullying
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Go-Kart Mozart's Lawrence, a genius at upbeat-downbeat indie pop
Song of the Day returns with two gloriously upbeat numbers with downbeat titles by Lawrence, formerly of Felt and Denim, from his brand new 17-track album Mozart's Mini Mart
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Chet Baker - lost in music in the 1950s
Song of the Day: The world wide web will be awash with Valentine's songs today, so here's one too - a jazz standard but with a darker edge, embellished with extraordinarily beautiful trumpet and voice of Chet Baker
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Van Der Graaf Generator in 1970
Song of the Day: With yesterday's David Byrne tracks being two of several by him with a house theme, today we visit another songwriter who uses them as metaphor extensively – Van Der Graaf Generator frontman Peter Hammill
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