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Life of a Song

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  • Monday, 18 January, 2021
    Music
    Rumble — how Link Wray brought the sound of slashed speakers to rock guitar

    The brutal-sounding instrumental track was hugely influential

  • Monday, 11 January, 2021
    Music
    Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City — a soul track indelibly linked with a hair metal band

    The song first recorded by Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland in 1974 became a Whitesnake staple

  • Monday, 4 January, 2021
    Music
    Love Hurts — a song recorded 60 years ago by the Everly Brothers has had a colourful afterlife

    The track has shown remarkable agility in hopping across genres and styles

  • Monday, 28 December, 2020
    Music
    The Final Countdown — Europe’s song became the soundtrack to the last days of Brexit

    The Swedish band left the song off their first two albums because it was too ‘unusual’

  • Monday, 21 December, 2020
    Music
    I Wanna Be Sedated — how The Ramones’ track emerged from Christmas limbo

    The ultimate anthem to desensitisation is a festive song, of sorts

  • Monday, 14 December, 2020
    Music
    Corpus Christi Carol — an ancient song steeped in mystery

    Jeff Buckley sang what is probably the best-known rendition of a carol whose meaning is still debated

  • Monday, 7 December, 2020
    Music
    Mah-Nà Mah-Nà — an absurd earworm made popular by The Muppets

    From soft porn to satire, this wordless song has a long and surprising history

  • Monday, 30 November, 2020
    Music
    Paper Planes — M.I.A.’s 2008 hit skewered xenophobic paranoia

    The British-Sri Lankan rapper’s song is musically and thematically wide-ranging

  • Monday, 23 November, 2020
    Music
    Friday on My Mind — how The Easybeats helped dispel Australia’s ‘cultural cringe’

    The group’s 1966 hit established a distinctive sound and attitude

  • Promoted Content
  • Monday, 16 November, 2020
    Music
    Rocket Man — Elton John’s 1972 hit boosted his ascent to superstardom

    Lyricist Bernie Taupin was inspired by a science fiction story

  • Monday, 9 November, 2020
    Music
    Venus in Furs — The Velvet Underground’s chilling drone-rock track was highly influential

    Punk bands were beguiled by Lou Reed’s song based on a torrid 1870 novella

  • Monday, 2 November, 2020
    Music
    Atomic Dog — how George Clinton relaunched his career with the funk classic

    The reverberations from this seismic 1982 track are still being felt today

  • Monday, 26 October, 2020
    Music
    Danny Boy — a closing-time classic with curious origins

    A song that speaks of Ireland and absence has a fascinating heritage

  • Monday, 19 October, 2020
    Music
    Hurricane — Bob Dylan’s howl of protest still resonates today

    The hard-hitting 1975 ballad tells the story of a black boxer framed and jailed for murder

  • Monday, 12 October, 2020
    Music
    War Pigs — how Black Sabbath’s epic pushed heavy metal into a new era

    The eight-minute track’s complex structure proved highly influential

  • Monday, 5 October, 2020
    Music
    Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag — how James Brown invented funk

    The singer’s 1965 hit brought a new kind of music to the charts

  • Monday, 28 September, 2020
    Music
    Also sprach Zarathustra — a fanfare that has echoed down the years

    Kubrick and Copland are among those who have felt the force of Richard Strauss’s piece

  • Monday, 21 September, 2020
    Music
    Ol’ Man River — a powerful indictment of black oppression

    Paul Robeson sang the definitive version of this beautiful, rousing tune

  • Monday, 14 September, 2020
    Music
    Red Right Hand — Nick Cave’s song packs a powerful punch

    The story of a devilish figure has been widely covered and had a rich afterlife on TV soundtracks

  • Monday, 7 September, 2020
    Music
    Streets of Laredo was already steeped in history when singers such as Marty Robbins tackled it

    The ‘cowboy’s lament’ is one of the most widely discussed and dissected songs in the folk canon

  • Monday, 31 August, 2020
    Music
    I Don’t Want to Hear it Anymore — Randy Newman’s song is more than just a tale of scandalised neighbours

    A track first recorded by Jerry Butler in 1964 has shed light on the tides of 20th-century history

  • Monday, 24 August, 2020
    Music
    Kung Fu Fighting — Carl Douglas’s 1974 hit capitalised on the martial arts craze

    A mash-up of global cultures and styles, the song has a surprisingly long history

  • Monday, 17 August, 2020
    Music
    Fly Like an Eagle — The Steve Miller Band’s hit tapped into a yearning for freedom

    The song was one of a number of 1970s paeans to the iconic bird

  • Monday, 10 August, 2020
    Music
    Scarborough Fair — the ancient ballad that sparked a modern-day grudge

    While Martin Carthy and Paul Simon were not speaking, many other singers gave voice to this mysterious melody

  • Monday, 3 August, 2020
    Music
    MacArthur Park — Richard Harris rose (just) to the challenge of Jimmy Webb’s epic

    Since it was a hit in 1968, many singers — including the big beasts of the larynx — have tackled this daunting song

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