The Songs

Thanks for stumbling upon my retirement project and labour of love, Here Comes The Song. Here you'll find the latest blogs from music fanatics about their favourite songs and the artists who wrote them. It really is about the music that moves us...

Jun 14

Marvin Gaye: Abraham, Martin and John. Not forgetting Bobby

If the last few gruesome weeks in Britain and America have taught us anything it is that both countries are governed by small men, men who…

May 22

Robert Jon & The Wreck: Tired Of Drinking Alone

Every now and then a band comes along that blows your socks off. Robert Jon & The Wreck are that band for me and this track – from their new

May 20

Suzanne Vega: Gypsy and a cherished Glastonbury memory

Many of us have a song that evokes a particular time, place or person: that anthem from your youth, or a slushy tune shared with a first…

May 3

Gillian Welch: The hush and the hurt of I Made A Lovers Prayer

There is more to the harmonica than meets the lips, to the extent that a careless student of the instrument might blow some serious money on

Apr 13

Thom Yorke: Last Flowers

When the panic swept through England, the scale was measured in loo roll. The supermarket rush for toilet paper evoked the run on Northern…

Apr 7

Jason Isbell: Traveling Alone

Jason Isbell tells an amusing tale about meeting Bruce Springsteen a few years back and being bowled over when The Boss began to sing the…

Mar 27

Sixties discoveries: From The Fourmyula to The Millennium

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. But is it possible to be nostalgic for a time you never knew

Mar 26

Paul Simon: American Tune

Churches and cathedrals will remain silent this Easter so there will be little chance to hear O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, a choral work by…

Mar 18

Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson: Alexandra Leaving

If poetry is the ‘music of ideas’ – an intriguing definition of the barely definable, put forward by the writer Peter Whitfield – can music…

Mar 8

Badfinger, sad singer: Day After Day

Has there ever been a sadder, more violent death in pop than that of Pete Ham? Grisly ends are not exactly unique in rock. Think Marvin Gaye

Feb 17

Richard Dawson: Two Halves and a singular voice

Time for a sheepish confession, or a proud boast, depending on your view. Of the thousands of 7” singles I have bought, blagged, swapped…

Jan 12

The Police: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

Desert Island Discs? Pah. How about a single musical morsel for sustenance, one solitary assemblage of crotchets and quavers with which to…

Jan 2

Black Grape: Dadi Waz A Badi and the Trumpian parallel

When Hollywood makes its Donald Trump biopic, which with horrifying inevitability it will, the soundtrack will be by Black Grape. And the…

Dec 12, 2019

Lindisfarne: Winter Song, Alan Hull's timeless cri de coeur

Don’t get me wrong. As Jewish as I am, I’m all for Noddy Holder roaring ‘It’s ChrisssssssssMAS!’ or John Lennon hoping war is over or Roy…

Sep 22, 2019

Eric Clapton: Layla (and Other Assorted Love Songs)

Launched into the stratosphere with arguably (in my humble opinion, indisputably) the greatest opening riff in the history of rock, Layla…

Aug 27, 2019

Joni Mitchell: Dark majesty of Shades Of Scarlett Conquering

If the 1960s were the decade of the classic single, the Seventies were the decade of what was quaintly called the album. And for the first…

Aug 6, 2019

Paddy McAloon: Keeping alive the spirit of Prefab Sprout

To some, The Artist Better Known As Prefab Sprout occupies an unthreatened throne. A thousand rave reviews, one Top 10 single. A daring deb…

Jul 9, 2019

Dion & The Belmonts: My Girl The Month of May

Frankie Avalon, Johnny Tillotson, Brian Hyland, Fabian, Bobby Rydell: by the mid-1960s many teen idols of the pre-Beatles era were already…

Jul 9, 2019

Anatomy of a classic cover: My Girl The Month Of May by The Alan Bown

My Girl the Month of May, Dion’s hymn to her, may have been the flipside of a flop but it inspired two distinctive covers by artists who…

Jul 4, 2019

Gretchen Peters: Arguing With Ghosts

It is always pleasing when a songwriter you greatly admire echoes a long-held belief. My contention is that the best songs are the sad ones…

MUSIC THAT MOVES US

HERE COMES THE SONG