The Secret Life of Songs

When Bruce Springsteen was asked why he was invited to write the theme song for 'Philadelphia', the first mainstream motion picture about the AIDS crisis, and one of the first films made in Hollywood featuring a gay protagonist, he responded that the film's director, Jonathan Demme, had 'wanted to take a subject that people didn’t feel safe with and were frightened by and put it together with people that they di...

'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' is now safely embedded in the pantheon of great songs: a 2023 Billboard poll named it the greatest pop song of all time, and it continues to be an ever-present on pop radio and wedding playlists. When it was first released, however, as the lead single from Whitney Houston's second album, it prompted a widespread critical backlash. Rolling Stone found it 'ridiculously safe' and ...

Of all the pop songs released in the era this series has been looking at, there are few which command the depth of love and affection as Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time'. It brings with it, for many listeners, a powerful weight of nostalgic associations and memories, which is one reason it’s the perfect choice for accompanying the mesmerising dance sequence at the end of the 1997 film, Romy and Michele’s High School ...

Why do we work? The answer might seem obvious; as teenagers the world over have long been told, the world does not owe you a living, but predictions by economists that technological advances would inevitably lead to shorter working hours have not been borne out. We work more than ever, and experience more stress and dissatisfaction with our lives as a result. As Dolly Parton's famous song about the working life, '9 to 5&a...

‘When I was little, I really wanted to be a psychiatrist. That's what I always said at school. I had this idea of helping people, I suppose, but I found the idea of people's inner psychology fascinating, particularly in my teens.’ This is Kate Bush, talking about what she wanted to do before becoming a musician. In this episode I explore whether the trace of ideas from contemporary psychology can be found in the songs she...

The 1970s were a period of intensifying fears about the rapid spread of technological complexity in the wake of environmental catastrophes such as the Three Mile Island accident and the popularity of dystopian sci-fi and 'tech-critical' books which warned that technology was already harming human wellbeing and would soon be out of control. In this context, then, what are we to make of the development of a musical style in...

When Brian Eno first heard 'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer, produced by Giorgio Moroder in 1977, he declared that he had 'heard the sound of the future'. It was the first pop song to be entirely produced on a synthesiser and quickly came to be seen as an important milestone in the history of record production, pointing the way forward to the dominance of electronic technology in the decades following its release. ...

When people first encountered Sly and the Family Stone in their early performances in San Francisco they were often struck by how much they really seemed like a family. They eschewed starriness; no one was put on a pedestal and it was clear that each member was valued and cared for. In a few short years, however, as the 1970s dawned, the band and this idealism seemed to implode. Sly Stone, the band's songwriter, had retreated ...

Has there ever been a pop band which has been as loved - and as hated - as ABBA? Even in the period before they appeared on the Eurovision Song Contest, when they were only well-known in Sweden, there were protests held and satirical songs written about them. In parallel with the long history of critical condemnations of ABBA, however, they have attracted greater love and admiration, from a wider range of listeners, than perhaps an...

The return of the award-winning music analysis podcast, The Secret Life of Songs, is a major event in the worlds of podcasting and pop music writing. Building on the success of the first series, which was awarded Bronze in Best Arts & Culture Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2021, the ten new episodes explore classic songs from the 1970s and 80s in ways which transform our understanding of popular music and break new groun...

How does a record make us feel like we're in a vast space, one that we've never experienced, one that may not exist? In this episode, the last of the series, I look at the Phil Spector production, 'River Deep — Mountain High', performed in 1966 by Tina Turner, to explore how we hear space in music. It was a groundbreaking record in its time, costing an unprecedented amount of money to make, and it still sounds a...

Since I first started listening to pop music, I've wondered about what's really going on in songs about love. Something seems to haunt expressions of romantic affection or loss, something that often seems to go beyond the strict meaning of the words. How can we explain the power of apparently simple songs about heartbreak and devotion? This episode looks into the history of American popular song to seek an answer to the q...

When Patsy Cline first heard Willie Nelson's demo version of 'Crazy', she didn't like it, thinking it sounded too vulnerable and heartbroken. Talked into it by her husband and her producer, she would make a record that seemed to capture something fundamental about the lives of its contemporary listeners, but while much has been written on Cline's status as a pioneering woman in the male-dominated world of c...

What does a chorus do in a pop song? Among our most basic assumptions about what will happen in a pop song is the expectation that it will lead us towards the fulfilment and clarity of a chorus, so it’s always interesting when a song chooses not to do this. Looking at this question in the context of Otis Redding’s 1966 version of ‘Cigarettes and Coffee’ can tell us something about what pop songs as a whole express to us: the way - ...

The history of rock music is in large part a history of men writing condescending and degrading songs about women, so it's interesting when a songwriter like John Lennon - with a track record of some of rock's most notoriously misogynistic lyrics - performs a song that at first listen appears to be apologetic and self-critical. In this episode, I look closely at the songwriting in his 1971 song, 'Jealous Guy', i...

The story of Billy-Rae, the preacher's son, and the singer of 'Son of a Preacher Man', stealing away from their parents to discover love in the back yard is contained in one of the most familiar and enduringly popular songs of the 1960s. The scene Dusty Springfield paints with such flair is one of the deep American South, so it might come as a surprise to learn that she was born Mary O'Brien in Enfield, north Lo...

The story of the Beach Boys starting out as preppy Californian surf-popsters to become Rock n Roll Hall of Famers responsible for 'Greatest Albums Ever' list perennial 'Pet Sounds' is a familiar one. This narrative tends to overlook the currents of tension and angst rippling under the surface of both the early pop hits and the Phil-Spector-meets-Maurice-Ravel grandeur of their mature work. 'God Only Knows&a...

The classic Motown duet, 'You're All I Need to Get By', seems to be about commitment - about a love which has recently been embarked on and which stretches ahead into the future - has come, perhaps surprisingly, to resonate with those mourning the loss of loved ones, including Marvin Gaye himself, who chose this song to play as he gave his eulogy at singing partner Tammi Terrell’s funeral. I look at this iconic soul ...

The 1960s girl group genre might seem an odd place to find tragedy, particularly when it's wrapped in such apparently joyful music as The Chiffons' 'One Fine Day'. Legendary songwriting partners Gerry Goffin and Carole King manage the difficult trick of combining the bright-eyed optimism of new love with the sad certainty it'll never be realised in a song which takes in influences from both doo-wop and oper...