Blog Archives

1973 (2007) – James Blunt

1973 is an unusual but easygoing pop song built around nostalgia. The English recording artist James Blunt looks back on his club-going days, remembering Saturday nights spent with his muse, Simona, as youth, music and time all ran together. I

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Annie’s Song (1974) – John Denver

I remember learning Annie’s Song on keyboard in my youth. I was completely swept up in it, and the melody never grew old to me. My favourite chords arrive in the second line – even now, when I sing it

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Thunderstruck (1990) – AC/DC

Thunderstruck opens with one of the most recognisable riffs in hard rock history. It’s impossible to confuse with anything else. Add the chant – that tribal “ah-ah, ah-ah-ah” – and the song feels less like a track and more like

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Move it on Over (1947) – Hank Williams

This cheeky little song from Hank is meant to get a chuckle. The writing is just so relatable, easy to just gel with, and if you pair it with the gospel number I Saw the Light, recorded at the same

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Má vlast (Fatherland) No. 2, Vltava (The Moldau) 1874 – Bedřich Smetana

Not long ago, we explored Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia. Now we turn to another work strongly tied to national identity – Má vlast (My Fatherland) by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. He wrote the six symphonic poems that form this cycle between

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Salchichas Con Huevos (1969) – Jimmy Sabater (Joe Cuba Sextet)

Salchichas y Huevos (Eng: Sausages and Eggs) by Jimmy Sabater doesn’t exactly hide what it’s cooking. It’s risqué, audacious, and can easily be read as chauvinistic – or worse. Much of that comes down to the wordplay and the stack

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She Belongs to Me (1965) – Bob Dylan

She Belongs to Me is a gentle song, sung with Dylan’s relaxed phrasing and a lightly swaying accompaniment that feels easy. On the surface, it sounds warm and affectionate, almost carefree. The woman he sings about is an “artist” too,

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Thank You (2000) – Dido

Thank You is the kind of song you can wake up to on a dreary, cloudy day and find yourself in better spirits after hearing it. It’s a hopeful song when it comes down to it, and very relatable. Dido

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Thunder Road (1975) – Bruce Springsteen

I can’t think of another song from my youth that left such a lasting mark on me, or that captured so clearly what music and storytelling could be, as Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road. And is there a more vivid, grounding

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Rubber Ring (1985) – The Smiths

Morrissey sings here about how music mattered intensely to so many of us when we were young: A sad fact widely knownThe most impassionate song to a lonely soulIs so easily outgrownBut don’t forget the songs that made you smileAnd

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