Song Lyric Sunday: Duets – ‘Barcelona’

This week’s theme – ‘Two are better than one’- challenges us to find a duet featuring two prominent performers. Well, it was never going to be ‘Islands In The Stream’ on this page was it? Instead here’s Freddie Mercury with prominent operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé. I had this perfect dream-Un sueño me envolvióThis dream was…

Song Lyric Sunday: Inferno – ‘Fire On The Mountain’

This week’s theme is fire or something involving heat. ‘Fire On The Mountain’ is the product of a rare collaboration between drummer Micky Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter (who more usually wrote with Jerry Garcia). In concert, it was almost always paired with ‘Scarlet Begonias’ in the ‘Scarlet-Fire’ diptych, but this is an outstanding standalone…

Song Lyric Sunday: Movies Need Music – ‘Cymbaline’

This week Jim wants us to truffle out a song that was specifically written for a movie. I featured one of the more obvious choices, ‘Saturday Night Fever’, a few years ago for a different prompt, and although there are some other classic Bee Gees songs on that soundtrack, I decided to look elsewhere. For…

Song Lyric Sunday: Family – ‘Mama Tried’

This week’s theme for Song Lyric Sunday is children and/or families and Jim has entitled his post ‘Perks of having kids’. It’s not all good news though, and while not all families have a black sheep, this one clearly did. This is a Merle Haggard song that, not being a particular fan of Country music,…

Song Lyric Sunday: Afterlife – ‘Presence of the Lord’

This week, we seek songs about God or the afterlife. Personally, I don’t believe in either of those things but, as Martin Luther reportedly said (although he probably didn’t): “why should the devil have al the best tunes?” The short-lived supergroup Blind Faith released their only – eponymous – album in 1969, when I was…

Song Lyric Sunday: Moments in history – ‘Ohio’

This week, Jim is looking for a song based on true events. My tertiary education alma mater is the University of Kent at Canterbury, where I studied (among other things) from 1970 to 1973. During my first year, a fellow student was an American who was doing a one-year masters course in Philosophy. I remember…