Song Lyric Sunday: Emotions – ‘Black Peter’

There is a whole range of emotions to choose from for Song Lyric Sunday this week. Fortuitously, one of these feelings – more of an emotional response, as Jim points out – is ‘pain’, which allows me to present one of the Grateful Dead’s most consistently played (over 340 times between 1969 and 1995) slow…

Song Lyric Sunday: Liminal – ‘Surf’s Up”

There’s a clear seaside theme to Song Lyric Sunday this week, and when one of the prompt words is ‘surf’, it’s inevitable that the Beach Boys spring almost immediately to mind. However, I haven’t gone for one of their earlier, teenybopper celebrations of California life but this rather more thoughtful song, from the album of…

Song Lyric Sunday: Military – ‘The Universal Soldier’

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday has a military theme to it. Following on from last week’s Clive Davis fest, I recalled that one of the great man’s very first signings was the Irish folksinger Donovan, and I certainly remembered this protest song from my schooldays. Donovan released his cover in 1965, although the song’s author,…

Song Lyric Sunday: Mental – ‘The Sound(s) Of Silence’

I must have been doing Song Lyric Sunday for too long, because this week, for the theme of ‘thought’ (broadly speaking), I realised that I had already deployed my first two choices: Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage/Eclipse’ and John Lennon’s ‘Mind Games’. However, this is surely up there with the best of them: a vision that…

Song Lyric Sunday: Precipitation – ‘Mission in The Rain’

Song Lyric Sunday this week takes ‘rain’ as its theme. The real standout choice for me would be Carole King’s ‘It Might As Well Rain Until September’; unfortunately it’s such a standout that I’ve already deployed it. Same with my second choice, the Grateful Dead’s ‘Looks Like Rain’; indeed, I used that for Helen’s prompt…

Song Lyric Sunday: Musical Instruments – ‘Johnny B Goode’

Entries for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday should make reference to musical instruments. Right then, here is Chuck Berry’s seminal rock ‘n roll classic – the tale of a young guitar prodigy. You may have heard it before…. Deep down in Louisiana close to New OrleansWay back up in the woods among the evergreensThere stood…

Song Lyric Sunday: Fruity – ‘The Lemon Song’

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday should make reference to a fruit in it’s title. This somewhat fruity piece from Led Zeppelin’s second album fills that bill. I should have quit you a long time agoOh, yeah, long time agoI wouldn’t be here, my childrenDown on this killing floor I should have listened, baby, to my…

Song Lyric Sunday: Apocalyptic – ‘Masters of War’

The Book of Revelation’s four horsemen of the apocalypse – war, pestilence, famine and death – constitute the cheery theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week. My first thought was this very early classic by Bob Dylan, released on the ‘Freewhelin’ album in 1963. Although I would only have been about eleven or twelve at…

Song Lyric Sunday: Modernity – ‘Modern Love’

As Jim is kind enough to give us a few weeks heads up of his weekly themes for Song Lyric Sunday, I’ve known that ‘Automated, Mechanical, Robots’ has been looming for some time. Jim himself rightly pointed out that it could be difficult to find something that matches this rather unusual brief (I was certainly…