World Party: Karl Wallinger, Always and the McCartney parallel
Rob Steen So I sat in the attic, a piano up my nose And the wind played a dreadful cantata (cantata, cantata) Sore was I from a crack of...
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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...
Billy Connolly: Everybody Knows That and the ballad years
Shug Hanlan It is impossible to mistake the looks of genuine joy and affection on the faces of the various ‘celebrities’ assembled for...
The Beautiful South: I'll Sail This Ship Alone
Tim Woods Record sales that topped 15 million. Eight top 10 studio albums, with two reaching No1 in the charts. Twenty-two singles that...
Nick Drake: Northern Sky and the short life of a brighter talent
Ian Malin Fifty years ago, in the second week of March, an album that now has almost mythical status was released and hardly anyone...
Oasis: Round Are Way, six minutes of joyous, rollicking perfection
Tim Woods There are people out there who don’t like Oasis. Plenty, in fact. Some find the constant bickering between the Gallagher...
1971 revisited: The Beach Boys and the majesty of Surf's Up
Ian Malin Meet the New Year. But to paraphrase The Who it’s the same as the old one. This dark lockdown is worse really than anything in...
1971 revisited: Carole King and the beautiful legacy of Tapestry
Rob Steen Hyde Park, July 3, 2016. For the first time, Carole King, one of the most successful songwriters of the 20th century, is about...
The Creation: Making Time and the sound of red with purple flashes
Phil Shaw ‘Our songs crop up in strange places,’ said Eddie Phillips, lead guitarist with The Creation, who briefly rubbed shoulders with...
Bert Sommer: Jennifer's journey from oblivion to Woodstock folklore
Sharon Watts in Beacon, New York The name Jennifer has ‘muse’ written all over it. Just ask Kurt Weill, Little Richard, Tommy Tutone,...
Man Without A Soul: Lucinda gives the Trump era a fiery send-off
Ian Malin Don’t worry it will soon be over. For those of us still standing anyway. The year the music, and pretty much all entertainment,...
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Janey Needs A Shooter
Chris Hewett Those of us who have spent the best part of 50 years surfing the mighty swells of Bruce Springsteen’s music – or, just...
Elliott Smith: Pretty (Ugly Before), soundtrack to a troubled soul
Tim Woods There are different ways for musicians to be successful. The most obvious is through the charts: No1 singles or albums that go...
The Grateful Dead: The spirit of Brokedown Palace lives on
Andrew R McGaan in Chicago One of the Grateful Dead’s most beautiful songs, both musically and lyrically, is a love song, a sermon, and...
Allman Brothers Band: In memory of Duane and Whipping Post
Exactly 49 years ago today, on 29 October 1971, a long-haired motorcyclist was making his way through the Georgia town of Macon when he was…
Gaz Brookfield: The Old Normal and other new lockdown songs
When Covid19 first struck and lockdown imposed, the West Country folk guitarist Gaz Brookfield – a type 1 diabetic more conscious than most…
Between The Wreck and a hard place: all aboard the Rescue Train
What do you do in times of Covid19 if you are a musician in a rock band? Rishi Sunak might suggest you retrain as a delivery driver…
In praise of songwriters: Rumer and the art of interpretation
Nearly 20 years ago the music journalist Max Bell was invited to a gig of a London-based folk-indie band La Honda in the cafeteria of a…
Isle of Wight 50 years after: the enduring majesty of Baez and Cohen
If you can remember the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, you weren’t really there. That follows, does it not, because the whole crazy, chaotic…
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…
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
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