Heart UK

Soul Music

<p>Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.</p>

BBC Radio 4

Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline was released in 1969, but it wasn't until the 1990s that it became a theme song for the Boston Red Sox, spreading to other other countries and sports, including the England football team. Danielle Capalbo is a Red Sox fan who explains where it began, and Lionesses fans Donna and Liz take up the story.Meanwhile in Essex, dance teacher Meryl Kiddier has found the perfect song to help Parkinson's patients with movement and mood. Cathy Hill describes how Sweet Caroline is a catalyst for changing the way she thinks about her condition. and Peter Lovatt, AKA Dr Dance, explains the science behind it all.And in Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, Agnes goes to a day care centre which is all about the singing and dancing. Sweet Caroline has become her theme song, and still gets her up and moving in her 90s.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven

Sweet Caroline

Rasputin was a massive disco hit for the British-German Caribbean group Boney M in 1978. Nearly fifty years later it remains a much loved symbol of happiness and freedom for a a truly global audience. This edition of Soul Music features stories from Iran, Cameroon, India and of course Russia.Anahita Tishtar says Rasputin is a song that represents a golden age in Iran before the Islamic Revolution restricted Western music. It reminds subsequent generations of happier times when people were free to dance.
Famil Ismailov recollects his wild dancing in the style of Bobby Farrell at teenage discos in the former Soviet Union. Boney M was one of the first Western music acts allowed in Russia.Eric Ngalle Charles heard the song on his sisters' cassette player as a small child in Cameroon. The song became significant to him a decade later when he was trafficked to Russia and ended up dancing on stage with Boney M at one of their many Russian concerts.Sweta Amit danced to it as toddler at her parents' dinner parties in Thailand. As a child from a conservative Indian family the song represents freedom and a way to banish stress.Rasputin on the violin and cello: the Scottish-Egyptian classical duo The Ayoub Sisters first heard it as children in the back of their surgeon father's car as he drove to the hospital to do his ward rounds. Later on they released a classical version of it.The original lead singer of Boney M Liz Mitchell says Rasputin has a sound and rhythm that incorporates so many different styles of music that people all around the world can identify with, and that it just makes people feel free and happy.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Rasputin by Boney M

"When the rain is blowing in your face / And the whole world is on your case / I could offer you a warm embrace / To make you feel my love"Written by Bob Dylan for his Time Out of Mind album, 'Make You Feel My Love' went on to become a huge hit for Adele and has been covered by Billy Joel, Ane Brun and many more. With its promise of unfaltering love, we find out what the song means to different people around the world. It has inspired a translation into a 65,000 year old language and a choral version with the comfort of a psalm; it has soundtracked heartbreak and grief; and become a lullaby of parental love. Featuring music writer Annie Zaleski, musicians Ane Brun and Dyagula, organist and conductor Anna Lapwood, Howard Simons, Aly Halberstadt, and Adele's manager Jonathan Dickins. Produced by Mair Bosworth
A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4

Make You Feel My Love

Marking 25 years of the award-winning series, Soul Music features songs from the last 25 years. “I tried to drink it away... I tried to run it away...” Solange’s hit song, written in 2008 and released eight years later, muses on themes of isolation, loneliness, and depression. She penned the lyrics to Raphael Saadiq’s instrumental in a Miami hotel room, gazing out at the cranes filling the skyline during the onset of the housing crisis and financial crash. Solange Knowles released her debut album in 2002 at the age of 16. This single appears on her third album, A Seat at the Table. She's the younger sister of Beyoncé.Featuring: Journalist Douglas Markowitz; music writer Kiana Fitzgerald; author of Why Solange Matters and Big Joanie guitarist Stephanie Phillips; and Rebecca McNeil. Producer: Eliza Lomas

Cranes in the Sky by Solange

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you..."True stories of what Yellow, one of Coldplay's most iconic songs, means to people 25 years on from its release.It's December 1999 and a relatively unknown band called Coldplay are midway through recording their debut studio album, Parachutes, at Rockfield Studios in Wales. The days are long, often working late into the evening. One night after a recording session, they step outside with their producer Ken, and look up to a sky full of stars. The rest, as they say, is history... Featuring, in order of appearance: 
Dylan Bode, musician and coma survivor 
Ken Nelson, music producer on Coldplay's Parachutes album
Debs Wild, fan liaison for Coldplay and author of Life In Technicolor: A Celebration of Coldplay
Neil Brand, composer, writer and broadcaster 
Katherine Ho, singer of the Mandarin version of Yellow for the film Crazy Rich Asians Producer: Becky Ripley

Yellow by Coldplay

A song that was everywhere after it was released as a single in 2000. Moby's Porcelain has been used in films, TV and adverts yet remains a much loved melancholic downbeat electronic ballad.  Reportedly written about the fragility of love after a break up it's a track that has a place in many people's hearts.The people featured are:
Felicia Narhi aka DJ Damselfly
Steve O'Brien
Gyu
Ola Mazzuca
John E Roy
Michael WeinhardtProducer: Maggie Ayre

Porcelain by Moby

This hour long special celebrates a quarter of a century of the programme and charts the course of a human life through pieces of music. Cerys Matthews introduces a compilation of some of the diverse pieces of music we've featured throughout the years - together with stories of the people whose lives have been changed by it. Everything from Satie's Gymnopedies and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending to Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell and Computer Love by Kraftwerk.Stories of birth, childhood, adolescence, as well as the griefs and joys of adulthood are expressed through the music that shapes and sustains us through the emotional ups and downs of our lives' journeys. Producer: Maggie Ayre

Soul Music at 25

The Mexican pianist and composer Consuelo Velázquez was only 16 years old when she wrote Bésame Mucho, and she was yet to have her first kiss. Composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez remembers hearing the song on the radio as a child in Cuba. She translates the Spanish lyrics - "Kiss me, kiss me passionately, as if tonight was the last time... Kiss me, because I'm afraid to lose you, afterwards". It's an achingly romantic bolero that has been translated into more than 20 languages and recorded by hundreds of artists, including João Gilberto, Frank Sinatra, Cesaria Evora, Diana Krall, Josephine Baker, Trio Los Panchos and The Beatles. Music writer Richard Williams talks about the eternal appeal of the melody and how it creates its emotional impact. German singer and composer Roland Kunz tells the tragic story behind the melody which inspired Consuelo to write the song: a piece by the Catalan composer Enrique Granados, who died the year Velázquez was born. At the height of WWI, Granados and his wife were on their way home to Spain from New York, when their passenger ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The story goes that Enrique was picked up by a lifeboat but saw his wife struggling in the water and dived in to save her. They perished, along with 50 other passengers.We hear stories of three very different couples who loved to dance to the song. Peter and Dorothy Tozer met at a dance school in Acton in 1962 when they were 17 and 16 years old. When the song played during the lesson on the night they met, the dance instructor suggested that - as it was Valentine's Day - everyone should give a kiss to whoever they were dancing with at that moment. The two complete strangers shared a kiss, and have been together ever since. When Stephen Miller met his Mexican wife Maria, love wasn't on either of their minds. Stephen was in his fifties and had lost his first wife to cancer. Maria had been a single mum for many years. He didn't speak much Spanish, and she didn't speak much English, but they fell in love and had many wonderful adventures together. One day Stephen was backing the car out of the driveway when he hit the wall. He had begun to lose his sight. As the couple were still adjusting to their new reality, Stephen realised that Maria's memory was beginning to slip. He talks about navigating blindness and dementia, and how they would drop everything to dance together to Bésame Mucho, the lyrics of which grew ever more poignant over time. And Denis Ledoux remembers his wife Martha, who died at 56. They loved to dance to the Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora's version of the song, practicing their dance steps in the living room. After Martha's death, he would listen to the song all the time, sometimes every day. The song became a way to hold onto her and the life they has shared. Denis reflects on how the song's lyric "kiss me, as if tonight was the last time" made him think of all the last times with Martha that he didn't know were last times. Produced by Mair Bosworth
Mixed by Ilse Lademann
Soul Music is a BBC Audio Bristol production for BBC Radio 4

Bésame Mucho

"May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold / May you never make your bed out in the cold."A perfect folk song of brotherly affection, with simply voice and guitar, John's Martyn's May You Never has captured listeners' hearts since 1971.  John Martyn was born in Surrey in 1948 and grew up in Glasgow. Part of the potent London folk scene in the late 60s early 70s, John's style evolved from these folk roots. Written in his early 20s, the enduring version of May You Never was recorded in one take in the early hours of recording his beloved 1973 album, Solid Air. The lyrics encapsulate something of the essence of John Martyn: sweet, joyful and affectionate, yet with a hint of danger ("And may you never lose your temper / If you get in a bar room fight"). John's life was beset by substance abuse and addiction and he died in 2009, age 60. May You Never, perhaps his most famous song, is remembered by those whose lives became entwined with the song, and by others who knew John or have covered it. Featuring: 
Michael Volpe, Executive Director of If Opera;
Lauren Bensted, a writer based in London;
Graeme Thomson, author of Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn;
Spencer Cozens, keyboard player and Musical Director in John Martyn's band from 1990-2009;
Blythe Pepino, Kit Hawes, Pete Josef and Sam Brookes from The John Martyn Project.With thanks to Kit Hawes and Spencer Cozens for the instrumental recordings.

May You Never

Robert Burns began a correspondence with Agnes McElhose, also known as Clarinda and Nancy, a married woman he was besotted with. When she left Scotland to reunite with her husband he wrote Ae Fond Kiss as a heartfelt farewell. It was later set to music and is one of his most famous 'songs' along with Auld Lang Syne and My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose.Karen Matheson, the singer with Capercaillie, talks about its meaning to her and how performing it at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 was a very special moment.Joan Donaldson from Michigan grew up with Scottish music and has called her latest historical novel Ae Fond Kiss. She says she channelled her grief into the characters as a way of dealing with a devastating loss.Sir Geoff Palmer discovered the song when he arrived in Edinburgh in the 1960s. He has traced Burns' and the song's connection to his home country of Jamaica and feels proud of the links he discovered.For film maker Karen Guthrie from Ayrshire - Burns' birthplace - coping with and caring for her estranged parents meant long drives home through the countryside he inhabited. It was a journey of rediscovering Scotland's national poet and relating her family's story to Ae Fond Kiss.Musician Seonaid Aitken plays both versions of the song on the violin and explains how the music conveys the feelings of longing after an unresolved love affair.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2025.

Ae Fond Kiss by Robert Burns

Stories of love, loss and legacy surrounding Donna Summer's iconic 1977 hit. Producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte wanted to make something which sounded like the future, and sure enough 'I Feel Love' went on to revolutionise disco and pave the way for electronic dance music. Almost 40 years on, it still sounds fresh to this day: the pumping arpeggiated bassline, the synthesized drones, and Donna's soaring multi-tracked vocals. Writer and AIDS activist Mark S. King reflects on what the song meant to him back when it was first released, and then later through the HIV/AIDS crisis. Retail consultant and author Mary Portas shares how the song got her through a difficult time of loss, taking her to a place beyond grief. A place of freedom and dance. Singer-songwriter Bruce Sudano, Donna Summer's husband of 32 years until her death in 2012, remembers the heady days when they first met. It was 1977, the same year that I Feel Love was written and released. And music journalist Danyel Smith, author of 'Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop', celebrates the incredible legacy of Donna and the power of this pioneering track. A track that still, decades later, gets people on the dance floor. Producer: Becky Ripley

I Feel Love

Written in 1963, 'Sailing By' by Ronald Binge was chosen by the BBC as the musical interlude to be played every night before the Shipping Forecast.  These are the stories of some of the people for whom this piece has a powerful emotional connection.After Cyrilene Tollafield's parents left Barbados for the UK, Cyrilene heard 'Sailing By' whilst cuddling up to her grandmother and her cousins during hurricane warnings.  Writer Henrietta McKervey spent a night in Fastnet lighthouse and listened to 'Sailing By' as she drifted off to sleep.  Having spent years of his life out at sea, Captain Harry McClenahan marvels at how the piece mirrors the rises and falls of the sea.  Chris Binge would interrupt his dad whilst he was composing at the piano in his music room, the air thick with cigarette smoke, and says whenever people find out who his father was it's 'Sailing By' that they know.  Helen Harrison conducted the piece at a concert in Blackpool and at the piano she unpacks the musicality and orchestration of the piece.  The best part of Jane Heiserman's day is the hour in the evening when she and her adult son, who has autism and lives at home, study together.  'Sailing By' became a firm favourite of theirs when they were looking for music as part of a module on the Intertropical Convergence Zone.  She says it brings a sense of calm to their day and serves as confirmation that everything is going to be alright.With recordings of 'Sailing By' by The Perry/Gardner Orchestra, Helen Harrison, Dave Spooner (Ronald Binge's Grandson) and Baked A La Ska.Producers: Maggie Ayre and Toby Field
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma HardingSoul Music is a BBC Audio Bristol production for BBC Radio 4.

Sailing By

Sir Karl Jenkins' Benedictus is the penultimate movement from his anti-war mass, The Armed Man. Written twenty-five years ago this year and performed over three thousand times, Sir Karl dedicated it to the victims of the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. It was originally commissioned by The Royal Armouries Museum and premiered for the millennium.  The Armed Man as a whole reflects the descent into war, but the movement of Benedictus' emerges as a message of hope and peace in the aftermath. Benedictus is recognised for its haunting cello theme, in a register unusually high for this resonant instrument. The cello solo gradually expands into a full choir and orchestra. Benedictus has given solace to listeners through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. We hear some of their stories. Featuring: British Armed Forces Veteran Michael Young, who served in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan; 
Reverand Charles Thody, Priest in Lincolnshire and chaplain for the NHS; 
Dane Coetzee, cellist in Cape Town, South Africa; 
And the composer of Benedictus himself, Sir Karl Jenkins and his wife, Lady Carol Jenkins. Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol
Sound Engineer: Ilse Lademann 
Editor: Emma Harding

Benedictus

"Lovely Day" was released in 1977. Its simple blissful melody masks profound lyrics which on closer examination offer hope and solace to many fans of the song.  Some of them share their stories here of what it means to them, including two people who had the privilege of meeting and working with Bill Withers.  Taro Alexander was a shy insecure young man with a stutter who founded an organisation for children like him who struggled with speaking in public. As a boy he would listen to Lovely Day in his bedroom. Often it was the only way he could get himself out of that bedroom and off to school. To his surprise he learned that Bill Withers had also had a difficult time throughout his childhood because of his stutter and invited him to meet the young people of SAY (The Stuttering Association for The Young).  Taro was deeply moved by Bill Withers' reaction to the young people and says the song speaks to so many of us in our daily struggles.  Bass player John Inghram met and worked with Bill twice at the Music Hall of Fame in West Virginia where both men are from.  He organised a tribute concert to him on his 80th birthday and played Bill Withers songs exclusively to honour the man he describes as generous and 'utterly hilarious'.
Sunita Harley had Lovely Day on her playlist when she went into hospital for the birth of a much longed for IVF baby. On a snowy April day after a long arduous labour she held her daughter in her arms for the first time and the sun shone through the window as Lovely Day came on the playlist.
Philippa King and her daughter Milly have a special place in their hearts for the song. It came on the car radio on a beautiful sunny drive along the coast near Brighton.  It was Milly's first trip outside of the hospital where she'd been for many months dangerously ill with Crohns Disease. The song gave mother and daughter hope that things would get better and it became their victory anthem when Milly was finally able to leave hospital.
Karen Gibson MBE founded the Kingdom Choir and has conducted and mentored many young singers. Their gospel version of Lovely Day is a thrillingly  uplifting reminder that we can all choose to make it a lovely day no matter what else is going on in our lives while we either listen to or sing that song.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Lovely Day by Bill Withers

"Tender is the night lying by your side / Tender is the touch of someone that you love too much..." - Chris Lightfoot will always associate Blur's song 'Tender' with his first big love. A relationship he moved across the world for, with someone he loved deeply and who changed the course of his life. A relationship he ultimately couldn't make work. The song came on, and they held each other - knowing they had to let each other go. "Tender is the day the demons go away / Lord, I need to find someone who can heal my mind..." - Music writer Jason Draper explains how the song was born out of a period of huge change and turmoil for Blur. Lead singer Damon Albarn's relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica had come to "a spectacularly sad end"; while guitarist Graham Coxon was tackling his own demons and taking steps towards sobriety. Living alone in a one-bedroom flat in West London and listening to a lot of Otis Redding, Damon had begun writing lyrics for a new song. Not a bitter break-up song, but one "that paid tribute to how important something was in my life... a celebration of love found and lost but not forgotten". Across town, Graham woke up one morning - still half dreaming - with a refrain circling in his head - "oh my baby, oh why, oh my" and captured a fragile guitar line on his dictaphone. These elements came together in studio, with the help of Producer William Orbit and 40 singers from the London Community Gospel Choir, to create a cathartic anthem that feels like a secular hymn."Come on, come on, come on / Get through it..." - Catherine Anne Davies, who makes music as The Anchoress, has loved Blur since she was a teenager. Tender has been there for her through break ups and times of difficulty. She talks about her experience of covering the song and explains how the structure creates its emotional impact. "Oh my baby, Oh my baby..." - For Sarah, the song will always be associated with the arrival of her first child, after it came on in the taxi on the way to hospital on the way to give birth. The song carried her through the overwhelming contractions and has gone on to become a cherished family lullaby. "'Tender is the night, lying by your side....' That's it isn't it? The love that you feel for the people closest to you, is almost too much... because of the risk involved, but it's a risk we're willing to take". "Come on, come on, come on / Love's the greatest thing, that we have..." - For Naomi Chiffi, the song provided a powerful outlet for grief and an opportunity for communion, after losing both her father and cousin to suicide.  For her, it's a reminder to give out love every chance we get - "love is the only thing that really matters". Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

Tender

“Well, I'll be damned,
Here comes your ghost again…”Joan Baez, also known as the "Queen of Folk", is halfway through writing a song one day when she gets a call from Bob Dylan. It’s 1974; almost 10 years after their relationship ended. The song went on to become the iconic ‘Diamonds and Rust’, an outpouring of memories from their time together in the early sixties.Music writer Kevin EG Perry tells the story behind Baez and Dylan’s relationship, how they shaped each other’s worlds, and how this song came into being a decade later. Folk legend Judy Collins, also a good friend of Joan Baez, shares old memories of Newport Folk Festival alongside more recent memories of performing ‘Diamonds and Rust’ with Baez at her 80th birthday. And we hear from people whose lives have been touched by the song. Classicist Edith Hall listened to ‘Diamonds and Rust’ on repeat when she ended her first marriage, on the night that the Berlin Wall fell. And writer John Stewart looks back on a heady relationship from his early twenties, which was always bound up with the lyrics of this song. Decades later, this formative time in his life continues to resonate with diamonds, rust, and gratitude. Producer: Becky Ripley

Diamonds and Rust

Elton John's slow burner is now one of his most beloved tracks. Released in 1971 during a prolific period for Elton and Bernie Taupin, many people see themselves in the lyrics.Eliza Hewitt grew up in a strict household in Pennsylvania. During the tumultuous early 70s, her brother introduced her to the music of Elton John, and she's still a tiny dancer in her late 60s.Lee Hall wrote the screenplay for Rocketman, the Elton John biopic. He sees the song as a conversation between Elton and Bernie.Podcaster Kirk Hamilton takes us through the song's slow build to a chorus which feels as though it's never going to come.Judith Sibley's daughter Lily-Mae received a terrible diagnosis when she was just 4 years old. Along with her brother Paul and friend Steven, she channelled her efforts into recording a charity single for her ballet loving daughter, and Tiny Dancer was the obvious song.When Ava Forte Vitali and Drew Wood met and exchanged playlists they realised how much they had in common. So much so, that Tiny Dancer had to play a part in their wedding.Produced by Sally Heaven for BBC Audio in Bristol
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma Harding.

Tiny Dancer

"I never felt magic crazy as this....."For some it's a beacon of hope, for others a metaphor for love.  'Northern Sky' is the penultimate track on Nick Drake's 1971 album 'Bryter Layter'.  The sound was shaped by the Velvet Underground's John Cale who added the piano, organ and celeste.  His records didn't sell well much to Nick's disappointment, but after his death in 1974 his music and genius became much better-known.  These are just some of the stories from whose lives have been profoundly touched by this iconic track.  Gordon Hunter had a difficult childhood and says hearing 'Northern Sky' brought a meditative sense of calm to his life, like "finding treasure."Nick Drake's producer Joe Boyd remembers how John Cale became involved in the recording, and his sadness that Nick never got the recognition he deserved in his own lifetime.Singer-songwriter Alex Hart took a job on the Covid-19 111 helpline during the first lockdown and listened to 'Northern Sky' on the drives home.  Alex covered the track for one of her albums.Musicians Neil MacColl and Kate St John fell in love on the 'Way To Blue' tour in 2011 and discuss their performance of 'Northern Sky' and Kate's string arrangements.  Neil walks us through Nick's guitar tunings and the song's lyrics.It's a song that reminds Laura Barton of spring and the first rush of love which she experienced as a student in Oxford."Brighten my northern sky."Producer: Toby Field for BBC Audio Bristol
Technical Producer: Michael Harrison
Editor: Emma Harding

Northern Sky

"I can see clearly now the rain is gone / I can see all obstacles in my way / Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind / It's gonna be a bright / Bright sunshiny day"I Can See Clearly Now was written by the Houston-born singer-songwriter Johnny Nash. First released in 1972, it became a huge hit and the song has been covered by hundreds of artists, from the Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff to the Irish rock group Hothouse Flowers. For recording engineer and producer Luke DeLalio the original of the song is 'a masterpiece', with a sublime vocal performance and an arrangement that is surprisingly experimental for such an apparently simple song. Professor Kathy M. Newman of Carnegie Mellon University tells us about Johnny Nash's life and career, from his early years as a clean-cut crooner and teen idol, to his time recording in Jamaica and his later years, living on a ranch in Texas. For author and psychologist Peggy DeLong it's a song of hope, resilience and love. It was once meant to be her wedding song but took on new significance after she lost her fiancé as a young woman in the 1990s. The song appeared in Brenda Drumm's life when she needed it most. In a moment of darkness and worry, it came on the radio as she was driving home from a day of tests at the hospital near her home in County Kildare. It allowed her to dare to plan for the future. Poet Jack Mapanje was detained in Malawi’s notorious Mikuyu Prison without charge from 1987 until 1991, under Hastings Banda's regime. He remembers singing the song when other political prisoners were released - "it's a song of hope". And the author Joanne Harris talks about the song's "sense of perpetual sky" and how the lyrics provide grounding and comfort in troubled times. Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

I Can See Clearly Now

Written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh Kay, Someone To Watch Over Me has endured as a tender ballad about searching for someone special.  It has been recorded by many different artists from Ella Fitzgerald to Willie Nelson but it's perhaps Ella's version that is best known.
Lyn Mackay grew up listening to it as a small child at her parents' home in Swansea. As she grew up and became a musician and entertainer the song has changed its meaning to her over the years.
Nica Strunk heard her father singing it during one of their sessions at his piano.  As he sang the line "where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?" she began to understand the difficulties he faced in expressing his emotions and the song brought them closer together.
Nicholas McInerny loved Sarah Vaughan's version and his daughter sang it at his second wedding.
Music producers James Morgan and Juliette Pochin have been Ella Fitzgerald fans since they met as students and are thrilled to have been behind the most recent release of Someone To Watch Over Me using Ella's original vocals accompanied by the LSO.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Someone to Watch Over Me

Sweet Thing by Van Morrison has an atmosphere full of tenderness, wonder and joy. But underneath this, there a feeling of transience, a melancholy sense of things coming to an end, and of inevitable change. It was written for his 1968 album Astral Weeks, at a time when the Northern Irish born Van had left his home country and was down-and-out in Boston, USA. Hear how the track has come to mean so much to so many. Caroline Mellor from Brighton remembers an intense moment of hearing Sweet Thing whilst staying in the mountains of Andalucía, Spain. Sammy Douglas, Councillor and current High Sheriff of Belfast, reflects on memories of the Troubles and how the song intertwines with the tale of his first love. Ryan H. Walsh, Bostonian and author of Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, explains how the seminal album Astral Weeks came about, and John Payne, flautist on Sweet Thing, shares memories of those extraordinary recording sessions with Van Morrison. And singer-songwriter Alanna Joy from South Africa considers why she opens her live sets with her own rendition of Sweet Thing, and recalls hearing it for the first time through Jeff Buckley's cover.Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma HardingProduced in Bristol by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio.  First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2024.

Sweet Thing

Antonin Dvorak wrote his Gypsy Songs in 1880. He was passionate about the folk music of his native Bohemia and set a poem by Czech poet Adolf Heyduk to music. Songs My Mother Taught Me is the fourth song in the cycle.Songs my Mother taught me
In the days long vanished
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished....It's a wistful melancholic piece evoking memory and loss.  Soul Music hears the stories of musicians, poets and singers from around the world of why they are so drawn to it.
The poet Raine Geoghegan is the daughter of a Romany woman whose life was weighed down with the loss of her father at a young age.  Raine identifies with the sadness of the music because it not only represents grief at the loss of her father but also for the loss of a way of life for the gypsy people.
For Emily MacGregor it's all about the music we inherit from our parents.  She is writing a book about music and grief and says this piece perfectly represents the bittersweet feeling of listening to music associated with the loss of a loved one.  Dvorak had already lost three children in infancy by the time he wrote his Zigeuner Lieder.
Paris based violinist and conductor Bartu Elci-Ozsoy associates Songs with the innocence of childhood and was moved to perform it at a benefit concert he organised in aid of the children affected by the devastating earthquake in his native Turkey and Syria in early 2023.
The Korean soprano Sumi Jo recorded it in honour of her mother and presented it to her a year before she died in gratitude for her determination to see her daughter become a professional singer.
When The Scotsman newspaper commissioned a series of lockdown concerts in Spring 2020 cellist Sua-Lee chose to recreate the concert  by Beatrice Harrison a century earlier when she played the piece accompanied by nightingales in her garden in Surrey.  Sua set up her cello in woodland near her home in Grantown- on-Spey and performed Songs My Mother Taught Me to a collection of woodland creatures
Singer Ruby Hughes performed the American composer Charles Ives' version of the piece for a collection called Bright Travellers - music curated and composed by Helen Grimes from poems by Fiona Benson.  Ives wrote his own version of Dvorak's piece not long after the Czech composer had settled in America.   She loves the rocking gentle lullaby sensation created by the lilting melodies of both Ives' and Dvorak's compositions.Featuring additional recordings by Sua Lee and Zoe ChallenorProducer: Maggie Ayre

Songs My Mother Taught Me

James Taylor's song of suicide, loneliness and addiction somehow remains hopeful and uplifting, even as people experience their own dark times.Holly Sinclair was driving through a Missouri winter to see her brother, in hospital after a suicide attempt, when the song came on the radio.Michael Granberry, arts writer for the Dallas Morning News, is also a huge James Taylor fan. He's the same age as Taylor, and reflects on the context of assassinations and war raging in America when he wrote Fire and Rain.Peter Asher was James Taylor's manager and producer, and remembers their first meeting, and the first time he heard Fire and Rain.Marcia Hines released a successful cover version of the song after moving from America to Australia as a teenager, and hearing the song blasting out of radios on both sides of the world.Mark Deeks and Jeff Alexander from Sing United community choir talk about the emotions generated when people sing a song they feel a connection to.And Peter Bardaglio, climate change activist, talks about a summer of fire and rain.Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven

Fire and Rain

Miriam Makeba recorded 'Pata Pata' in 1967 with the help of American producer Jerry Ragovoy.  It became a huge hit and Miriam Makeba used newfound fame to speak the injustices of apartheid.  Her records were banned and South Africa and she was forced to live in exile.  Here, people from around the world share their stories about what this iconic track means to them.Actor John Kani grew up in Johannesburg remembers dancing to the song when it came on the radio and says that Miriam Makeba became an inspiration for how art could bring about change.  He would meet her years later after a concert in New York, and again in Johannesburg after apartheid ended. Author of 'Makeba: the Miriam Makeba Story', Nomsa Mwamuka, charts the history of 'Pata Pata' and why Makeba would come to see it as "frivilous".Buks van Heerden is a pace-runner who has completed over 800 marathons.  He plays 'Pata Pata' late in the race when the runners he's pacing are getting tired and says it always lifts the mood.Angelique Kidjo says Miriam Makeba was the first African woman on the cover of an album.  Hearing 'Pata Pata' inspired her to perform, and later in life she and Makeba became friends.Dr. Niyi Coker devised 'Mama Africa: The Musical' in Cape Town when he realised that a younger generation of South Africans weren't aware of Miriam Makeba of her work.  'Pata Pata' would see two generations of 'Miriam' singing together and it would bring the house down.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Toby Field
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma HardingWith thanks to Rita Ray, Dr. Niyi Coker, and Moses Molapisane at the BBC bureau in Johannesburg.

Pata Pata

Wicked the musical is 20 years old in 2023. The story of the Wizard of Oz told from the witches' perspective examines themes of difference, power and alienation. The so called Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba born with green skin experiences the pain of growing up different and of longing for acceptance. No surprise then that anybody who has ever felt marginalised or that they don't fit in is drawn to her story.  Defying Gravity is Elphaba's war-cry at the end of Act One as she bravely decides to forge her own path in life - to "close her eyes and leap".
The song has become a powerful anthem for people from all different walks of life and this episode tells some of their stories.
Edward Pierce the Broadway set designer of Wicked knows the song through and through as he worked on the sequence where Elphaba takes flight and begins Defying Gravity.  It wasn't until he became severely ill with Covid that the song took on a different meaning.  While he was in an induced coma on a ventilator a nurse sang and hummed Defying Gravity to him.  He believes that song played more than a minor role in his recovery. That nurse was singer Felicia Temple who had featured on The Voice America singing talent show performing Defying Gravity. When her musical career was cut short by lockdown in March 2020 she returned to nursing and when she found herself at the bedside of a Broadway set designer there was only one song that came to mind.  But it has a personal resonance for her too as she went onto that TV show to sing the song one year on from her own illness with cancer and was resolute that as the song goes 'nothing was ever going to bring me down'.
The first British singer to play the role of Elphaba in the West End and Broadway is Kerry Ellis.  She recounts how that song has given her so much in life and how grateful she is to its strong message of courage.
Kath Pierce formerly of the Manchester Proud Choir outlines why Defying Gravity is such an important song to the LGTBQ community and why the choir and members of the public took to the trams and streets of Manchester one November evening in defiance of a violent attack against two young gay men. They'd been on their way home on the tram singing songs from Wicked after a night out.  Hundreds of people assembled in the city centre and sang Defying Gravity as a protest against the hate crime.
Musicologist Mel Spencer talks us through the genius of composer Stephen Schwartz's song and how it harks back to Somewhere Over The Rainbow as well as to Wagner!Producer: Maggie Ayre

Defying Gravity from Wicked

Written by Dolly Parton... sent stratospheric by Whitney Houston;  I Will Always Love You is a song that has a worldwide fanbase reflected by the diverse memories shared here:Nagham Kewifati tells how her mother, Mayada Bseliss, had a huge hit in Syria with an Arabic version. It was produced by Nagham's father, Mayada's husband, Samir.Dr. Marie Thompson of the Open University, who co-wrote a short course entirely about Dolly Parton, reveals the unlikely story behind the song and why Elvis Presley was refused permission to record his own version.Member of Parliament, Jim Shannon, explains why he introduced an unusual Early Day Motion in the House of Commons to celebrate the song's 50th anniversary in 2023.Ben Rimalower, host of Giants in the Sky on the Broadway Podcast Network, describes how obsessed he became with Whitney Houston's performances of this track when he was recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.Vocal Coach, CeCe Sammy Lightfoot, describes how difficult Whitney Houston's version is to sing and the technique required to perform this vocal high-wire act.And Marcus Grimmie, brother of singer Christina Grimmie, remembers his sister's beautiful voice and rise to stardom before she was tragically murdered. He set up the Christina Grimmie Foundation in her memory to create a community and provide financial support for families affected by gun violence.Producer: Karen Gregor

I Will Always Love You

'Fast Car' is one of Tracy Chapman's biggest hits, with listeners from around the world finding striking connections with their own lives in the song's story. It was released in April 1988, and that summer, the American singer-songwriter performed it to a global audience of 600 million at Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute. This broadcast catapulted Tracy and the song to super-stardom, as it became a top ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic and received three Grammy nominations. Ever since, 'Fast Car' has resonated with people around the world. The lyrics describe a working woman trying to escape a cycle of poverty, dreaming of a plan to leave in a "fast car". She speaks of wanting to get out of the life she finds herself in, living in a shelter, and driving towards the city to find something better. This episode features the personal stories of Fitzroy Samuels in Kingston, Jamaica; Priscilla Munson in Indiana, U.S; Gemma Brown in Gateshead, UK and Dev Cuny in California, U.S. We also hear from Alister Wright in Sydney, Australia whose band, Vlossom, covered Fast Car; and Nigel Williamson, music journalist who has met and interviewed Tracy Chapman many times. Produced by Eliza Lomas, BBC Audio Bristol

Fast Car

When Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David wrote I Say A Little Prayer For You in 1967 the war in Vietnam was raging. The song was intended as message of support for the soldiers there.  It was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick and the following year by Aretha Franklin.
Doug Bradley was drafted and served in Vietnam as a war correspondent. He says the music the troops all listened to on AFVN (Armed Forces Vietnam Network) sustained him and others while they were in country.  His book We Gotta Get Out of This Place (The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War) documents the vital role music played for the soldiers.  Aretha Franklin was a symbol of hope and civil rights for many African American troops and I Say A Little Prayer a soothing and calming message of love.
The singer-songwriter Rumer adored the song and all of Aretha's music as an unhapy teenager in England. She went on to write the hit song Aretha about a young girl whose mother has a mental illness confiding all her worries to the Queen of Soul.  Her husband Rob Shirakbari was recruited by both Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach as keyboard player and musical arranger. To him the song with its mixture of time signatures and different interpretations symbolises many happy years playing with two of the musical greats.
Jazz singer Nnenna Freelon has recorded two versions of because it is one she has loved throughout the years but only after the death of her husband Phil in 2019 did it become a song about the expression of grief.  Her latest version interprets the song as a plea and a prayer for her late husband as well as for herself.  Her podcast Great Grief is a meditation on grief and loss combined with music.
In 1968 Aretha Franklin played in Stockholm.  15 year old Hasse Huss and his friend hung around her hotel hoping to meet her.  Not only did they meet her but at her invitation they spent the next day with her as she rehearsed for her show.  I Say A Little Prayer fills him with happiness and nostalgia for this happy day in the late sixties and he plans to incorporate the song lyrics into a speech for his son's wedding.
And Professor Daphne Brooks grew up with older siblings and musical parents who introduced her to the song. It has been with her throughout her life representing for her the 'fullness of black womanhood'.  The song very recently helped her deal with her beloved mother's passing at the age of 96.Producer: Maggie Ayre

I Say a Little Prayer for You

Ghost Town was recorded by British two-tone band The Specials as a comment on urban decay and social unrest. It was released in June 1981 as riots were springing up around the UK and with the help of an iconic video it topped the UK singles charts. It was also the band's final single.
Writer Alex Wheatle first heard 'Ghost Town' in 1981 whilst in a social services hostel in Brixton awaiting his court appearance. He'd been arrested following a day of action in Brixton to protest against racist treatment of Black people, after rumours of police brutality. He was sentenced to one year in prison and sang 'Ghost Town' in his cell, as he began to find hope and purpose in his life.Claire Horton grew up in Dudley and says 'Ghost Town' echoed her experiences of watching the shops and nightclubs of this once vibrant town closing down. Her Dad was made redundant and it had a huge impact on her family, and as a young police officer she would walk the streets and understand why people were getting so frustrated with their situation.Soul and Reggae DJ Dave Marshall Barrett traces the history of The Specials who formed in Dave's hometown of Coventry in 1977. It's the first thing people mention when he says where he comes from.John Collins was surprised when Jerry Dammers asked him to produce the record.John created the initial opening 'ghostly' sounds on a synth at home but he says they now sound more like sirens. The song's success opened doors for John and he loves how it keeps finding new audiences.Broadcaster Samira Ahmed grew up in London and said her the recession of the early 80s hit her family's catering business hard. Too young for nightclubs, she remembers the video of 'Ghost Town' playing on Top of the Pops and says the track made a huge impact on her understanding of music and politics.Jazz singer Beverley Beirne covered 'Ghost Town' for her 2018 album 'Jazz Just Wants to Have Fun' and was reminded of it during the first lockdown when she wasn't able to perform.Founder of The Specials Jerry Dammers reflects on the inspiration behind 'Ghost Town' and how trombonist Rico Rodriguez was the heart and soul of the band.Additional research: Melanie Pearson
Technical Producer: Michael Harrison
Editor: Emma HardingProduced for BBC Audio Bristol by Toby Field. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2023.

Ghost Town

When I Only Have Eyes For You first emerged in 1934 it was a jaunty cinema ditty written by Harry Dubin and Al Warren for the film "Dames". But it gained huge popularity when the 1950s doo wop group The Flamingos - under Terry Johnson’s musical arrangement - transformed it into a dreamy otherworldly love song. Terry explains how he  turned the song into an evergreen hit that’s been covered by many including Art Garfunkel and Carly Simon.Musicologist Luis Cruz attributes the genius of the song to its pedal chord - the repeated use of the C note. This adds to the feeling of fixation where the singer can’t see anyone else but the object of his affection.The song is obviously one that speaks of deep love and Vivian Fransen was one of many who chose the song to play at her wedding. She'd been introduced to the Art Garfunkel version in 1975 when she met the man who was to become her husband. 12 years later he revealed a secret he'd been keeping from her which ended their marriage and caused her to reassess the song's meaning.Jess Farr Cox would sing the song to her aged rescue dog Pico as his health deteriorated. Only that song - and the theme to Antiques Roadshow - would send him to sleep when he was in pain and distress. She still gets emotional when she hears it over a year after he was eventually put to sleep. People underestimate the love you get from a rescue dog, she says.Chris Deerin is a political journalist and part of Scottish band Fat Cops. He recorded a version of I Only Have Eyes For You for the Tiny Changes Young People's Mental Health Charity. This was founded after singer Scott Hutchison died in 2018. Chris says he and fellow musician Bobby Bluebell had always loved the song and felt it was a fitting tribute to fellow musician Scott.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2023.

I Only Have Eyes for You

Some people say it's a protest song about the commercialisation of Christmas, others that it's anti religious. I Believe In Father Christmas is neither, although lyricist Peter Sinfield concedes it does include a touch of cynicism. But ultimately it's a song of joy and hope. When Greg Lake co-wrote it in 1975 he had embarked on a solo career away from Emmerson, Lake & Palmer. Those around him at the time, including songwriter Peter Sinfield and broadcaster Bob Harris, recall how repeating a simple acoustic guitar exercise led to this giant of a song. It includes a full choir, orchestra, and an extract from Prokofiev to create an enduring Christmas anthem. For many people it's a comforting song, conjuring images of nostalgic picture postcard Christmases of childhood spent in the ambience of Christmas tree lights and candles with "eyes full of tinsel and fire". For others, it's a cautionary reminder of the need to look beyond the materialism and commercialism to a more spiritual, quiet time.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2022.

I Believe In Father Christmas

Singer Jon Christos watched the Italia 90 World Cup with his Dad.He says Pavarotti's live performance of 'Nessun Dorma' at the tournament was the only time he ever saw his Dad cry. Pavarotti's daughter Cristina talks about the impact this aria had on her father's life and how his 1990 performance inspired many people to become interested in opera.Beatrice Venezia conducted 'Nessun Dorma' at the 'Puccini day' she created in Lucca in 2018. She also conducted Andrea Bocelli's performance of the aria at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. Sir Bobby Robson's son Mark was at Italia 90 and talks about the pride he felt seeing his Dad lining up with the England team for the semi-final against West Germany. It was also sung at Sir Bobby's memorial service in Durham Cathedral.Broadcaster and author Alexandra Wilson explains that the opera Turandot is the story of Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the titular Princess. In 'Nessun Dorma' Calaf expresses his determination to win her hand, ending with that extraordinary refrain 'Vincerò!' or 'I will win'. Paul Potts won 'Britain's Got Talent' in 2007 performing 'Nessun Dorma' and recalls singing it to over a million people at the Brandenburg Gate on New Year's Eve in 2010.When Italy locked down in March 2020, hairdresser Piero d'Angelico played 'Nessun Dorma' from a five-story window above Cambridge railway station to show solidarity with his home country and the Italian community in his adopted city.Voiceovers by Mike Ingham and Rebecca Braccialarghe.Producer: Toby Field for BBC Audio in BristolFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2022.

Nessun Dorma

"Strumming my pain with his fingers... Singing my life with his words..."Killing Me Softly with His Song is a song about the pleasure and embarrassment of being seen. The feeling that someone has reached into your deepest, most private feelings, and laid them bare. It's a song about a singer, and about what music can do and a love song that feels at once happy and sad.The song was a huge hit in two different generations. It won Grammy Awards for The Fugees in 1997 and for Roberta Flack in 1974.Ray Padgett is author of Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time. He unfolds the layers of the song's history as a famous cover of a famous cover.Musicologist Nate Sloan explores what the song does harmonically, oscillating between major and minor chords to create a sense of uncertainty and longing.Lori Lieberman tells the story of the Don McLean concert that inspired her lyrics for the song, that she was the first to record as a young singer-songwriter in 1972.It's a song that transports Tiff Murray back to the hot New York summer of 1996, when the Fugees version blared out everywhere. For her it was the soundtrack to falling in love while far from home. It's also a love song for Julie Daley, but now with a sharp edge. Dr Robin Boylorn listened to the Fugees version as a self-conscious teenager and felt a flush of recognition.Ben heard it the Christmas he first came to the UK from South Africa, played by a busker early one morning in Covent Garden as the first snow he'd ever seen began to fall. Perminder Khatkar has treasured the song since it played in the delivery room during the birth of her first child.Producer: Mair BosworthA BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2022.

Killing Me Softly with His Song

"I don't believe in an interventionist God" must be one of the most original opening lines to a song.It's one that resonates with the people in this programme who take comfort from Nick Cave's love song.Els from Belgium was introduced to Cave's music through her partner Guido and Into My Arms became their song. After Guido died in a road accident Els carried on going to concerts and took great comfort from hearing that song. When she later wrote to Nick Cave's blog The Red Hand Files to tell him her story about Into My Arms she was overwhelmed when Nick Cave responded.The Reverend John Walker feels a strong connection to the song as it's one his musician son Jonny performed just for him one evening on a rainy street in Leeds City Centre as Jonny was about to pack up and leave his busking spot. That special father-son moment has become even more cherished since Jonny's untimely death in 2018.Many different artists have recorded their versions of Into My Arms including the Norwegian singer Ane Brun who performed it as a way of dealing with the heartache of a lost relationship.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on Radio 4 in December 2022.

Into My Arms by Nick Cave

Powerful stories linked to this beautiful and stirring Ukrainian folk song.Chervona Kalyna inspired Pink Floyd to reform so they could release their own version, 'Hey Hey Rise Up', alongside Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox.It's a clarion call with roots stretching back to 17th century Cossack history; as meaningful now as then, this episode of Soul Music reflects how music can be a unifying force in the most dangerous and difficult of times.Anti-Russian, it was banned prior to Ukrainian independence in 1991 with one of its lyrics calling to 'free our brothers Ukrainian from Muscovites shackles'. Its full title 'Oi u luzi chervona kalyna' translates as 'Oh the red viburnum in the meadow': red viburnum is a common plant in Ukraine and in the song it's a metaphor for the country itself.Telling their stories: * Taras Ratushnyy, journalist turned soldier, discusses his beloved son, Roman, and the heroic role he played in Ukrainian society both before after the war began.* Elizaveta Izmalkova is a young Ukrainian singer who now lives in Lithuania. She performed Chervona Kalyna as part of a flash-mob co-organised by Egle Plytnikaite who describes why she and other Lithuanians wanted to demonstrate their support for Ukraine.* Nadia Morykvas wrote a book about the cultural polymath, Stepan Charnetskyi, who - in the early 20th century - adapted Chervona Kalyna for one of his plays.  (Volodymyr Oleyko translates for Nadia Morykvas).* Andrij Halushka is a Ukrainian who now lives in London. He describes how his family history, down multiple generations, connects with the song.* Julia and Kateryna came to England under the 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme when the war began. Under the name 'Dvi Doli' they raise money for Ukraine by staging concerts where they perform traditional songs on the Bandura.* Taras Filenko is a pianist and ethno-musicologist. Originally from Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, he now lives in Pennsylvania, USA. He discusses the musicology of the song, and recalls a neighbour from his childhood who was imprisoned for performing Chervona Kalyna in the 1940s.* Myroslava Hartmond is a British-Ukrainian cultural diplomacy expert. She explains how the current popularity of Chervona Kalyna began when Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the lead singer of Boombox, recorded an a capella version in the centre of Kyiv. This inspired Pink Floyd to collaborate with Khlyvnyuk and release their own version.Please scroll down to the 'Related Links' box on the Radio 4 Soul Music webpage for further information about some of the interviewees and the different versions of the song used in the programme.  The programme image is of Taras and Roman Ratushnyy.Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2022.

Chervona Kalyna

A Violin Concerto in G minor, Opus 26, became the best-known work of the German composer Max Bruch.  Originally written in 1866, it went through many revisions before finally being completed in 1867.  It was performed extensively but having sold both the publishing and the manuscript Bruch died in relative obscurity in 1920. The Concerto would continue to be played around the world and the second movement in particular, the Adagio, became a much-loved favourite.Journalist Claire Read describes how much her Mother loved the piece after Claire learned and performed it in school, and how she would listen to it whilst being treated for cancer.Ukrainian violinist Kostia Lukyniuk recalls playing it with an orchestra in his home town aged 11, and how music still gives him strength as he plays for those battered by the Russian invasion of his home country.The second movement brings back fond memories for Archers actor June Spencer who listened to it with her husband and their friends on a veranda in Minorca.Leader of the Welsh National Opera David Adams was inspired to take-up the violin after listening to a recording of David Oistrakh playing this piece, and later performed it at the Fishguard Festival. It was a favourite of his Mum's and that recording was played at her funeral.The Carnegie Hall was the setting for violinist Shlomo Mintz's most treasured performance and he describes how it feels to play those soaring melodies.Curator Robinson McClellan at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York explains how the manuscript of this concerto made its way from Germany to the USA, and why this work would later become a source of resentment for this 'establishment' composer.Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Toby Field.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2022.

Bruch's Violin Concerto

Ne Me Quitte Pas is a song about begging someone not to go - and of promising the world to them, if they'll only stay. From Haiti to New York, Provence to Glasgow - in versions by Nina Simone, Dusty Springfield and Scott Walker - we hear stories of what Jacques Brel's song has meant to people around the world. With contributions from France Brel, Johane Celestin, Alastair Campbell, Brendan McGeever, Peter Hawkins and Malaika Kegode. Producer: Mair Bosworth A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in June 2022.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

"I never meant to cause you any sorrow, I never meant to cause you any pain..."True stories of what Prince's epic ballad means to different people around the world, from the very first jam in 1983 to the global hit that reigns over us today.Bobby Z, the drummer from Prince and The Revolution, remembers the buzz of the first ever performance of Purple Rain, and how the recording from that night lives on.Susan Rogers, Prince's recording engineer, tells stories from the Purple Rain tour, when the crew took bets on how long Prince's guitar solos would last. Comedian Sindhu Vee first heard the song as a teenager growing up in India and was knocked sideways by it. Weather reporter Judith Ralston describes the beautiful and rare weather phenomenon of purple rain. Social historian Zaheer Ali sees the song as a cry out for change, bringing audiences from different backgrounds together in cross-genre harmony. And finally, an intensive care hospital nurse played Purple Rain to Kevin Clarke while he was in a coma, because his sister knew he loved the song and hoped it might pull him through.Producer:  Becky RipleyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2022.

Purple Rain

****  4 Extra broadcast to mark 40 years since the 45 rpm single was released in the UK on 23rd April 1986  ***   Candi Staton and others celebrate this 1970's disco classic which delivers an optimistic message.Written by David Crawford and released in 1976 this is the kind of song that feels like a carefree celebration, something to lose yourself in on the dancefloor. But its story isn't quite so simple.  As Candi reveals, Young Hearts Run Free was influenced by her own troubled and abusive relationship which she struggled to leave.  In fact the creation of the song helped her gain the confidence to finally walk away. Other contributors are:Singer songwriter, Glen Hansard. He performs the song 'as' his mother because it reminds him so much of what the song meant to her. Ziggi Battles, a singer who chose to cover the song as a way of rejoicing in the role it played in recovering from a very difficult time.Jason Gilkison, the Creative Director of Strictly Come Dancing. It will forever remind him of the first time he choreographed a group dance for Strictly at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. His grandfather had danced there himself as a young man, before establishing the first dance school in Perth, Australia, which is where Jason developed his own love of ballroom dancing.Neil Brand, composer and broadcaster, analyses why the piece works musically. He also describes the pure joy of a version by Kym Mazelle and - unlikely as it seems - the actor and opera singer, Paul Sorvino.  It was used as the soundtrack to the ballroom scene in Baz Luhrmann's film of Romeo and Juliet.  Versions used:  Candi Staton
Glen Hansard
Maz O'Connor;
Ziggi Battles
Gloria Estefan
Kym Mazelle
Kym Mazelle (Ballroom Version) with Paul SorvinoProduced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Karen Gregor. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2022.

Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton

In 1942, Benjamin Britten boarded the M.S. Axel Johnson, a Swedish cargo vessel, to make the journey home to England after three years in America. During the voyage, the ship stopped at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Britten came across a poetry anthology in a bookshop - The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems. In his cabin, he began work on setting some of these poems for voices and harp. Originally conceived as a series of unrelated songs, the piece developed into an extended choral composition for Christmas.There are some pieces of music we return to at special moments and, for many, Britten's A Ceremony of Carols is a beloved winter piece - "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a performance of it" says harpist Sally Pryce, who recalls performing the piece in deepest winter, desperately trying to keep her fingers warm as she prepared to play the first harp notes. Music writer Gavin Plumley tells the story of Britten's wartime voyage home and reflects on Christmases past and present. Matt Peacock remembers a very special performance of the work bringing together professional musicians, choristers and people experiencing homelessness in an Oxford college chapel. Dr Imani Mosley reflects on how the piece has helped her create a winter ritual in sunny Florida and how its meaning has changed since losing her partner. Conductor and composer Graham Ross is Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge; he takes us deep into Britten's sound world and reflects on the genius of his approach to setting texts and the mastery of his writing for harp and voices. And Johanna Rehbaum remembers the joy of singing the work with the women of her choir, days before giving birth to her son.Produced in Bristol by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten

More gospel than rock, this 1987 hit has inspired great change in people's lives and created memories for music lovers across the world.Brendan McManus was a corporate high flyer with an inexplicable sense that his life needed to change direction.  This song was the tipping point that encouraged him to make a huge decision.Raghav Prasad writes a music blog about the songs he grew up with as a young man in India.  This track takes him back to the 'chummery' where he lived in Bombay (now Mumbai) when he was starting out on what became a globe-trotting career. This song reflects both his continued urge to travel but also how he regards his Hindu faith.Neil Brand is a musician and broadcaster and a regular Soul Music contributor.  He explains that the roots of this track are more gospel than rock.Pauline Henry was the lead singer of The Chimes.  Their version of this track, with Pauline's stirring vocals, not only changed her life but was said to be Bono's favourite interpretation of the song.Rory Coleman is a world-class athlete and life coach who loves nothing more than to run for hundreds of miles across inhospitable terrain. However, in his 20s, his life was out of control.  Something had to change and this song provided inspiration.Gail Mullin, in Kansas City, describes how much her husband loved U2 and especially this track.  Shortly before he died he received a personal letter from Bono explaining what motivated him to write this song. Producer: Karen Gregor for BBC Audio in BristolFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2021.

U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

"Long afloat in shipless oceans":So begins ‘Song To The Siren’ whose lyrics were inspired by Homer's Odyssey and the story of the Sirens who lured unwitting sailors to their deaths on the rocks.There is something so ancient and enchanting about the Siren that appeals to us.For wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson listening to the song reinforced his belief that the eerie calls of seals at night,  were in fact the original siren voices whose sound and shape convinced sailors that they were being called by strange mer-creatures. His collaboration with poet Alec Finlay led to Chris recording two singers singing to each other across a bay in the North East of England "Here I am waiting to enfold you". Song To The Siren fills him with melancholy.The image of lives lost at sea is one that Meg Bignell strongly associates with the song.When a family friend drowned in the ocean surrounding her native Tasmania she was comforted by the version by This Mortal Coil and Elizabeth Fraser's haunting vocals.Larry Beckett regrets the song's association with death as he intended the lyrics to tell a more hopeful story about love. However Tim Buckley's death at 28 and the tragedy of his son Jeff's drowning in 1997 weigh Song To The Siren with a heavy sorrow that comforts those who have lost a loved one.Former Olympic runner Anthony Famiglietti lost his childhood friend Rob in an accident when they were both 21. Rob introduced Anthony to the music of John Frusciante whose version of Song To The Siren astounded him when he first heard it. It has a profound effect on him and it speaks to him of fathers and sons communicating across time and space, when one has passed on as in the case of Tim and Jeff Buckley, and Anthony's friend Rob and his father, the man who inspired Anthony's career as a runner.When Director Zack Snyder lost his daughter he stopped working on his Justice League film but when he completed it four years on he wanted to include Song To The Siren. Singer Rose Betts who recorded it for him explains how she immersed herself in the song to express the love, longing, grief and loss that it evokes.Musician and singer Dominic Stichbury sets out the musical elements that make this such a simple yet devastatingly powerful song.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2021.

Song To The Siren

Personal stories inspired by Massive Attack's breakthrough single.  Featuring the vocals of Shara Nelson, the track together with its iconic video would help catapult this band from Bristol onto the global stage.  Stories include the photographer Giles Duley whose work was displayed during the song at the band's 2016 homecoming show in Bristol.  Mountaineer Dmitry Golovchenko who named an attempt on the Nepalese mountain of Jannu after the track*. Solicitor Marti Burgess who saw early sets from The Wild Bunch, the collective from which Massive Attack emerged, and for whom 'Unfinished Sympathy' helped crystallise her identity.  Music Producer Ski Oakenfull deconstructs the track, peeling back the layers of beats, bells and samples.  Belgian singer Liz Aku recorded a version of the track during lockdown, bringing back memories of her first love.  Melissa Chemam, author of 'Massive Attack Out Of The Comfort Zone' explains the origins of Massive Attack, how 'Unfinished Sympathy' was written and why, when the track was released in 1991, the band had to drop the word 'Attack' from their name.  A radio producer and DJ who spent New Year's Eve in a detox centre in London was asked to pick the tune to be played at midnight, and she chose 'Unfinished Sympathy'.Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2021.*Since this programme was recorded, climbers Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergey Nilov have both sadly died in climbing accidents.

Unfinished Sympathy

Ezio Pinza was the first person to sing Some Enchanted Evening when South Pacific opened on Broadway in 1949.  His granddaughter, Sarah Goodyear, recounts his extraordinary life story: from international opera singer, to political prisoner, then a star of musical theatre. Perhaps best known for its 1958 film version, South Pacific famously starred Rossano Brazzi as Emile de Becque. However his singing voice was provided by opera star, Giorgio Tozzi.  His son, Eric Tozzi, recalls hearing his father practise Some Enchanted Evening in their California beach-side home.Canan Maxton runs the charity, Talent Unlimited, which supports student musicians. Some Enchanted Evening was the signature tune to her own love story, which inspired her to launch that organisation.Alan Titchmarsh is best known as a TV gardener, but he has a surprisingly good voice. Some Enchanted Evening is a childhood favourite which reminds him of his parents, but he couldn't have foreseen the day when he would sing it live at the London Palladium for an ITV audience (credit to ITV All Star Musicals, produced by Multistory Media for the extract used).Daniel Evans is the Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. He staged a well-reviewed production of South Pacific, one which explores the racist theme Rodgers and Hammerstein originally sought to address in their Broadway production. He explains the role Some Enchanted Evening plays in the storyline of the show.Julian Ovenden played Emile de Becque in the Chichester production. He describes what it's like to perform this very famous and much anticipated song. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  BBC Audio Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2021.

Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell made Ain't No Mountain High Enough a hit for Motown in 1967. Diana Ross followed suit in 1970 as a solo artist with her version of the song. It has a place in people's hearts with its anthemic themes of love, loyalty, triumph and perseverance. Cynthia Dagnal-Miron is an African American who grew up in the 1960s and she says the song gave black people a sense of comfort and of being loved. Kevin Patterson recalls meeting an elderly lady in a store in Philadelphia and hearing the song. He learned she had been part of a movement to desegregate a local school in the 1960s and she had sung it then at a talent show. John Harris says music and being part of a choir were what saved him when he sank into drug addiction and crime and ended up in court. When he got clean he sang that song at the Court's 25th anniversary celebration."No wind no rain no winters cold can stop me from getting to you" were the words Lesley Pearl sang to her birth mother as she lay gravely ill in hospital. Lesley had braved Hurricane Sandy to fly to Charleston to be with her and it brought them closer towards the end of her life.At the height of the pandemic in 2020 when New York was suffering huge numbers of Covid deaths and hospitalisations, nurse Kym Villamer sang it to staff and patients at the hospital where she works to remind them of the perseverance of the human spirit and the goodness of humanity.An Assistant Professor of Music at Washington University in St Louis breaks down the various musical elements that make it such an enduring powerful uplifting anthem.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.Producer:  Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2021.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong"'Take Me Home, Country Roads' was written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert with and for their friend John Denver.The song went on to be covered by Ray Charles, Toots and the Maytals, Olivia Newton John and many more. A song about the longing for home and the desire to be back with the people you love, 'Country Roads' has become one of the official state songs of West Virginia but it also speaks to people from around the world and across political divides. It's a song about togetherness, belonging, homesickness, the immigrant experience and the hold that the landscape of your 'home place' can have on you. Featuring contributions from: Bill Danoff
Sarah Morris
Jason Jeong
Ngozi Fulan
Lloyd Bradley
Alison Wells. And from Molly Sarlé, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath of the band Mountain Man. Produced for BBA Audio in Bristol by Mair Bosworth.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2021.

Take Me Home, Country Roads

"But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise
And you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Goodnight and joy be to you all"The Parting Glass was written in Scotland and has criss-crossed the Irish Sea, becoming a popular song among Celtic peoples around the world.Folk singer Karine Polwart, talks of its fragile beauty as a song that can be a rousing drinking song at the end of the night but equally a poignant farewell at a funeral.For Alaskan Fire Chief Benjamin Fleagle, there was no more fitting song to honour his mentor and colleague at his Fire Department when he passed away over a decade ago.  Alissa McCulloch 'clung' to the song when she heard the Irish singer Hozier sing a version of it at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. At the time, Alissa was mentally unwell at home in Australia and was admitted to hospital where she listened to the song over and over finding comfort in its timeless beauty.After Canada's worst mass shooting in its history, Pete MacDonald and his sisters recorded an acapella version of the song as a musical tribute to those who lost their lives. It's a tradition in Nova Scotia to sing in the kitchen at parties, wakes and celebrations and they wanted to pay their respects to the dead.Irish singer Finbar Furey has performed the song with his band the Fureys and talks about its appeal not only in Scotland and Ireland but throughout the Scots-Irish diaspora.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2021.

The Parting Glass

The Carpenters - brother and sister duo Richard and Karen - were one of the most popular groups of the 1970s.  His outstanding compositions and her stunning vocals created several massive hits including We've Only Just Begun. Originally written as a TV advert for a bank portraying happy young couples embarking on married life full of hope, they loved it and released it as their third single in 1970.  Karen's wistful voice gave the song a melancholy that has long resonated with fans.  After her premature death from heart failure due to anorexia nervosa, the song took on an extra poignancy with lyrics like "so much of life ahead".Fans tell their stories about the song and how it relates to their own life journeys.For Professor Karen Tongson (named after the singer), We've Only Just Begun is about growing up in the Philippines where The Carpenters epitomised the American Dream. When she emigrated to the USA, the song became a metaphor for the immigrant experience.Nomad and writer Jeff Read remembers his childhood in a poor part of Los Angeles brought up by a single mother who eventually died homeless on the street.  The song brings back memories of childhood optimism and his longing for a stable family life.Poet Abigail George recalls seeing a film about Karen Carpenter's life and identifying with the singer's struggles with an eating disorder as she herself had to cope with a difficult family life in South Africa. Retired policeman John Weiss was reminded of the song when he attended the death of an elderly person at a care home. John looked at the deceased man's wedding photos and was struck by the brevity of life. The singer Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes always loved The Carpenters and recorded her own version of We've Only Just Begun as part of an album where things don't end well for the young bride. Ironically, her version now features in a commercial for a British bank so the song has come full circle.Randy Schmidt is the author of Little Girl Blue (The Life of Karen Carpenter).Versions of the song featured are byGrant Lee Buffalo
Paul Williams
Natasha Khan
The Carpenters
The Carpenters with the Philharmonic OrchestraProducer: Maggie AyreA BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in July 2021.

We've Only Just Begun

This disco classic tells a powerful story:  that of a young, gay man leaving his homophobic small town for the freedom of the big city.Released in 1984, Smalltown Boy continues to resonate and has become an anthem for the LGBTQ+ community.  The track appeared on their album 'The Age of Consent' which drew attention to the inequality between the ages at which heterosexual people and homosexual men were legally able to have sex.Taking part in the programme: Shaun Dellenty, an ex primary school leader and author who developed an award winning LGBT+ training programme 'Celebrating Difference-Inclusion For All' which he now delivers to students and staff around the world.  Paul Flynn, journalist and author of 'Good As You, 30 Years of Gay Britain'.  Diane Anderson-Minshall, CEO and Editorial Director of Pride Media.  Colin Crummy, freelance journalistNeil Brand, pianist, composer, writer and broadcasterAdam Carver aka Fatt Butcher, drag artist, creative producer, and community organiser.  Archive: The audio of Jimmy Somerville is taken from the BBC archivesMusic: various versions of Smalltown Boy by Jimmy Somerville, and Bronski Beat.  Also covers by Dido, and Orville Peck.Producer: Karen Gregor for BBC Audio in BristolFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2021.

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat

Sunshine on Leith was released in 1988 but didn't become the big hit The Proclaimers had hoped for.  However it has endured and become an anthem of love and a celebration of life.  It is the song played at Hibs FC matches and has come to symbolise the sense of community felt by supporters. Margaret Alcorn recalls how she and her husband were involved in the Hibs Supporters Club organising and taking part in social events for local people in Leith. When their club came under threat from a merger with rival Edinburgh team Hearts she and her husband worked tirelessly to preserve it - and when her husband passed away the song was played at his funeral. Musician Ross Wilson grew up in Leith and is also a passionate Hibs Supporter.  The feelings of comfort and solidarity he experiences at home games led him to create his own version of the song which he performed with a choir to celebrate one of his favourite songs that reminds him of home and that he calls true soul music.Melinda Tetley's family would always sing Proclaimers songs at home in Edinburgh while her three children were growing up. But when her teenage son fell ill with leukaemia, the song took on a special significance for them culminating in a spontaneous joyful singalong on a walk along a lochside.The human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith is a big fan of The Proclaimers and remembers seeing them perform Sunshine on Leith in New Orleans just days after 9/11 to an audience of exactly eight people - half of whom were the prosecuting team in a Death Row murder case he was defending. Musicologist Dave Robb who toured with The Proclaimers explains the song's lasting emotional appeal and spiritual beauty.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

Sunshine on Leith

Life on Mars was released on David Bowie's Hunky Dory album in 1971.  Two years later it came out as a single in its own right. Famous for its exploration of disillusionment and alienation, there is no one single definitive story behind it. But that is perhaps the song's beauty and the secret behind its appeal - that its cryptic lyrics are open to interpretation, and can mean different things to different people.  Musicians and fans talk about what Life on Mars? means to them, and its lasting emotional impact.Special programme made to mark Bowie's birthday on January 8th 1947 and commemorating his death on January 10th 2016.And what does the question mark in the song's title mean?With contributions from:* Musician Dana Gillespie whose autobiography is Weren't Born A Man
* Bowie author Chris O'Leary
* Scientist Abigail Fraeman of NASA's Mars Mission* 
* Artist Bridget Griggs
* Reverend Steve Stockman
* Screenwriter Ashley Pharoah (Life on Mars)Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio BristolFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2021.

David Bowie - Life on Mars?

Stories from people about how ‘Once In A Lifetime’, Talking Heads' existential hit from 1980, touched their lives.Talking Heads emerged out of the post punk scene of the late 1970s.  'Once In A Lifetime' is the iconic single taken from their album Remain In Light. With its looped synthesizer and Afrobeat inspired by Fela Kuti it seemed to pre-empt the consumerism and ennui of the 1980s.  Writer Ian Gittins interviewed David Byrne and later wrote his book Once In A Lifetime. He says David Byrne had in mind people of a certain middle class existence who seemingly breeze through life with ease when he wrote the lyrics. They may get to middle age or reach a crisis point and ask "How did I get here?"   For a song that invites us to question our lives it has a surprisingly emotional core that  encourages people to be grateful and make positive changes in their lives where necessary.  For Glaswegian Gerry Murphy that meant becoming more present for his family after serious illness forced him to reconsider the amount of time he devoted to his career. He went on to write a book about his experience - And You May Find Yourself: A Guided Practice To Never Fearing Death Again.Ian Peddie was inspired by the song to leave his dead end existence in Wolverhampton in the mid 1980s to 'find himself in another part of the world' following his dreams.  Kelly Waterhouse says the song symbolises gratitude for all the things she takes for granted and sometimes struggles with in her life as a busy working mother.And singer Angelique Kidjo recorded her own version of Once In A Lifetime in 2018 after coming full circle with the song from her arrival in Paris in 1983 after fleeing the dictatorship in her home country of Benin.  She heard the song at a student party and recognised the Afrobeats adopted by David Byrne and Brian Eno that made her feel both joyful and homesick at the same time.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

Once In A Lifetime

As Christmas approaches, Soul Music leads you through Advent with the Appalachian carol "I Wonder as I Wander".Written by American folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles, its origins come from a song fragment collected in 1933. Mysterious, inspiring, this traditional Christmas carol reflects on the nativity and the nature of wondering. While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, Niles attended a fundraising meeting held by evangelicals who had been ordered out of town by the police. He wrote of hearing the song:“A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. ... she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song”.The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, and a magnificent idea". Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of "I Wonder as I Wander" that is known today.This most unusual of carols touches people in different ways. With childhood memories from a 1960’s RAF base in Oxfordshire, a Nigerian school girl who found her place in Winchester Cathedral, reflections from a candlelit vigil in an Appalachian town, and a Christmas gift as described by world renowned singer Melanie Marshall.  With guests: * Performer Melanie Marshall
* Ron Pen (biographer John Jacob Niles)
* Viva Choir member Louise Sheaves
* Author Chibundu Onuzo
* Music scholar John McClain. Featuring music from:* John Rutter
* Burl Ives Consultant: Ted Olson.Producer: Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

I Wonder as I Wander

An enduring classic which delivers a message of support and friendship.  Never more so than in 2020 when Lean On Me by Bill Withers was the musical backdrop to the Covid crisis in the UK, and at Black Lives Matter protests in the US.Featuring: Andy Greene, a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine, who tells the remarkable life-story of Bill Withers.  Composer, Neil Brand, explains how the simplicity of this track is what enables it to pack such a strong emotional punch.Sara Morrell is a nurse whose version of Lean On Me, recorded quickly at home as a way of cheering-up colleagues, caught the attention of some big names in the music industry.Sharmila Bousa organised a community flash-mob to show support to her local shops in Westbury-on-Trym which had suffered a spate of armed-robberies.Arianna Evans has become a voice of the Black Lives Matter protests.  She recalls a powerful moment at one of the Washington DC rallies where local singer, Kenny Sway, sang Lean On Me creating a memorable and much-needed moment of joy and unity.Thanks to: Ian DeMartino who recorded the speech given by Arianna Evans; Zaranyzerak who provided the recording of Kenny Sway's performance; and to Tristan Cork who filmed the Westbury-on-Trym flashmob for Bristol Live.  Produced at BBC Bristol by Karen Gregor.  A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2020.

Lean On Me by Bill Withers

"At first I was afraid, I was petrified"... From a breakup to a shipwreck, emotional true stories of what Gloria Gaynor's iconic disco anthem I Will Survive means to different people around the world.A woman sets out to become the first female rower to cross the Atlantic solo.A woman listens to the song 35 times in a row after a breakup.A drag queen steps onto the stage of a Berlin nightclub.A mother watches her daughters sing karaoke at a holiday club on the first foreign holiday since leaving her abusive marriage.And women gather on the steps of the Courts of Justice to sing the song together as they await a verdict. Featuring: Elisabeth Hoff
Latrice Royale
Penny Arcade
Pragna Patel 
Nadine Hubbs Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020.

I Will Survive

It's a love song about growing old. Neil Young's Harvest Moon released in 1992 is a nod to 1970s country rock.It's loved by music blogger Alyson Young. It's also a grown up song about love says singer-songwriter Ricky Ross. How do you make the magic last and how do you keep love alive?  People tell their stories about what the song means to them: jazz singer Maureen Washington danced to the song with her late husband. Amanda Legere played it to her premature baby daughter when she went  to see her in the ICU. She knows the baby responded to that song.  Mary Divine and her husband were serenaded on their wedding anniversary during lockdown. The whole neighbourhood came out to watch a teenage neighbour play Harvest Moon for them.  Margy Waller drove to work at the White House on the final days of Bill Clinton's Presidency listening to Harvest Moon because she needed to cry. For her it's a song about loss. She is still touched by it today during the pandemic in what she describes as another period of great loss.Versions of Harvest Moon include those by:
 
Neil Young
Cassandra Wilson
Maureen Washington
Nils Lofgren
Neil Young UnpluggedSeries about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2020.

Harvest Moon

Ravel's beautiful Pavane For A Dead Princess touches many people.  While it is not actually about a dead princess it does evoke a sense loss.  For Carla van Raay it symbolises the loss of innocence she experienced after sexual abuse as a child which led her to make some difficult life choices.  Deal Hudson played it to prisoners in Atlanta and was moved by their reaction.  At an academy for troubled teenagers in California the Pavane had a similar effect.  Genevieve Monneris comes from the town where Ravel was born on the border with Spain.  Her film Henri and Pat tells the story of three French airman who were stationed in York during World War Two.  Just days before Henri's plane was shot down the three young men went to a concert of Ravel's music in York. So the piece has a strong emotional meaning for Genevieve whose own father was also stationed with the RAF in York.  Professor Barbara Kelly of the Royal Northern College of Music explains the background to the Pavane's composition and why it appeals to the emotions in such a powerful way.  Although it was written at the end of the 19th century it became more widely known in the 1920s.  That was when a young woman called Lucia Joyce daughter of James Joyce danced to it with her avant garde dance group.  The writer Annabel Abbs tells Lucia's tragic story of how her life ended in a mental asylum and how she almost became the imaginary 'dead princess'.Versions used:
Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte
William Orbit 
Julian Bream 
James Rhodes
Maurice Ravel
Ravel Pavane arrangement for harp and celloProducer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020.

Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte by Maurice Ravel

The surprising history behind a track made famous by Nina Simone.  Feeling Good was written for a now obscure musical and originally performed by Cy Grant, the first black man to appear regularly on British TV.   Cy Grant's daughter, Samantha Moxon, describes her father's extraordinary life from Prisoner of War camp to a successful career in the arts.  The composer, Neil Brand, discusses why the song has gone on to transcend the almost forgotten musical it was created for.  Other speakers are Sam Reynolds, who says the track helped her through challenging times, and musician, Kirsten Lamb, who sings a simplified version with young children at a homelessness project in Massachusetts. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2020.

Feeling Good

Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay was written whilst Otis Redding was reflecting on his life on Sausalito Bay, California, in the summer of 1967. Its upbeat, laidback melody belies the loneliness of the lyrics.  In December of the same year, Otis was killed in a plane crash. His song was subsequently released and became the first posthumous Number 1 record in the US.His musician contemporaries including Booker T Jones and guitarist Steve Cropper, who co-wrote Dock of the Bay, tell the story of the song's genesis, and people in their 20s to their 80s reveal why they relate it to dramatic periods in their lives.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producers: Maggie Ayre and Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2020.

Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay

“It’s a goodbye song, but it’s also an inspirational song, It could also mean a new beginning" - Ray DaviesWritten by Ray Davies and released by the Kinks in 1968 'Days' had a very different sound to the rest of their repertoire. Sorrowful but uplifting it's been embraced by listeners across the world who have found solace and hope in its lyrics.Having been covered by numerous artists (most notably Kirsty MacColl), it speaks to people of all generations and captures moments in their lives.  For Sim Wood it's an anthem to great friendships and discovery whilst for actor Gabriel Vick it's a song that has journeyed with him from a place of fond memories to heartfelt remembrance.  John Slater, who was born the same year that it was released, has his own celebratory take on 'Days' and for Laura and John Mapes it's the song that gave them the words they so needed to express. With contributions from rock critic and writer, Barry Miles.Producer:  Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2020.***      If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, including urgent support, a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. ***      Or you can call for free to hear recorded information on 0800 066 066.

Days

Released in 1982,  Toto's soft-rock anthem has become an unlikely viral smash-hit.Africa is a song that has changed lives, helped to raise thousands of pounds for charity and provided an unexpected musical cornerstone in a critically acclaimed play. Ralf Schmidt is the Artistic Director of Ndlovu Youth Choir which is made up of young people from the poorest parts of South Africa.  Incredibly, the choir made it to the final of America's Got Talent, one of the biggest entertainment shows in the world. Ralf's exuberant, irresistible and uniquely African arrangement of Toto's Africa was their stand-out performance. (Brief extract of AGT (c) Fremantle USA and Syco Entertainment)Michael Savage (aka DJ Michael Vinyl) of Prime Cuts record shop in Bristol, staged what could be considered a night of torture when he played Africa non-stop for twelve hours at a club. As Mike and Olivia Perry recall, this was to raise money for the Bristol based charity, Temwa, which operates in Malawi. They expected a handful of people to turn up, but the event had worldwide attention and was a huge success.Mike Massé's life was completely changed following his release on YouTube of what many consider to be one of the best Africa cover-versions ever recorded. The main photo is of Mike Massé (photo credit: Jim Mimna).David Greig is the Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh; an esteemed playwright with intellectual clout. So, why did he include Africa in one of his plays? Well, he nearly didn't, but then he saw the light.And, Abigail Gardner, a reader in music at the University of Gloucestershire, explains why Africa - originally a US No. 1 for just a week in 1982 - has recently undergone a strange modern rebirth, making it one of the most streamed songs on the internet. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2020.

Toto's Africa

Performed as part of the mystery plays, the 'Coventry Carol' is from the Pageant of the Shearman and Taylors and tells the story of the Slaughter of The Innocents. A copy of the manuscript survived a fire in Birmingham Library in 1879 by sheer chance. Musician Ian Pittaway describes seeing the play in the ruins of Coventry cathedral in the 1980s - the drama was so powerful it still moves him to tears. The carol was sung on Christmas Day in 1940 in a live broadcast to the Empire just six weeks after the bombing of Coventry that destroyed the city's cathedral. Journalist Donna Marmestein tells of how the carol transformed how she felt about loss in her family. Composer and performer Tori Amos describes what inspired her cover version of the song. Amy Hanson from the Small Steps Charity talks about how much her mother loved the carol. The children from the school her charity supports in Kenya sing their version of the song.  Roxanne Burroughs explains about how her daughter Kaitlyn came to have the carol sung at her funeral.  The soloist is Samantha Lewis; early music is from The Night Watch; Reading Phoenix choir and Southern Voices sing the carol and the children's choir is from the Rehabilitation centre Immanuel Afrika in Nairobi, Kenya. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Sara ConkeyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day 2019.

Coventry Carol

We Are Family written by Nile Rodgers and performed by the Sledge Sisters Kathy, Kim, Debbie and Joni was released in 1978 at the height of disco's popularity. Kim Sledge says it has become the anthem for diverse groups of people around the world who come together on the dance floor to form a family.  Professor Tim Lawrence says disco at its best was an inclusive music movement that welcomed people of all races and genders, unlike rock music which in the early 1970s appealed to a predominantly white male audience.  We Are Family epitomised dance music's appeal to traditionally marginalised groups in the USA - African Americans, Latinos, women and gay men.Listen to the stories of some of the people for whom the song is linked with some of the most significant experiences of their lives.Produced by Maggie Ayre.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2019.

We Are Family

'The Boxer' is Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel's 1969 masterpiece.  People who have a deep personal connection with the song and its lyrics, discuss what it means to them.Seamus McDonagh is a former boxer.  He recalls his tumultuous time during and after his famous fight with Evander Holyfield in 1990. He also explains why he identifies closely with the song's lyrics.Julie Nimoy is the daughter of Leonard Nimoy and co-producer of a film about the much-loved actor’s life story - 'Remembering Leonard Nimoy'. Best remembered as Star Trek’s Mr Spock, Leonard’s favourite song was ‘The Boxer’. Julie describes exactly what it meant to him both throughout his life, and in its closing moments.Gary Edward Jones is a singer-songwriter who for years rejected comparisons made of him to Paul Simon.  Eventually, he embraced the likeness and his life changed after developing a show called 'Something About Simon - The Paul Simon Story'.  Dave Mason is an amateur guitarist who has found deep meaning in The Boxer; meaning that has changed and grown as he has. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2019.

The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel

Personal stories about Farewell to Stromness, by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.  Written in 1980 as a protest against uranium mining in Orkney, the music has touched and changed people's lives.   The Orkney landscape which inspired Max's music is described by his partner Tim Morrison. We hear from Rosalind Newton, for whom the music provided peace after the death of her grandmother.  Conductor Christopher Warren-Green recalls his performance of the music at the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.  In Stromness we discover a community coming together to face the threat of uranium mining.  Guitarist Sean Shibe and writer Ivan Hewett consider why this simple piece is so subtle and affective.  And we hear from Jeana Leslie how the music, with its quiet melancholy inspired by folk music, has became traditional , and was a favourite for Peter Maxwell Davies to perform to visitors at his remote island home.Producer: Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2019.

Farewell to Stromness

“I follow the Moskva, down to Gorky Park… listening to the wind of change.”The German rock band Scorpions’ lead singer Klaus Meine was inspired to write Wind of Change at a rock festival in Moscow in the summer of 1989. Politics were rapidly shifting in the Soviet Union at the time as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms.  Recalling the peaceful yet revolutionary atmosphere at the concerts, Klaus said “there was a whole new generation of Russian kids that said the Cold War would be over soon - we could literally feel the world changing in front of our eyes”.No one had any idea that the Berlin wall would come down only a few months later. Wind of Change was released in 1990, and has since become an unofficial anthem for the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany in 1991. The power ballad is one the best-selling singles in history, and popular all over the world.Featuring interviews with lead singer of the Scorpions Klaus Meine, Russian rock musician Stas Namin, and true stories of what the song means to people who lived in the former USSR.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. Producer: Sophie AntonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2019.

Wind of Change

Ralph McTell and others discuss a song that was written for a heroin addict, became an anthem against homelessness, and transcended the folk genre to become an enduring classic.Ralph says he’s thought constantly about the “blip in my graph” that is Streets of London. People say to him “50 years. One hit. You think you’d have given up by now”.  But, Ralph says, that’s not why he writes songs. And, of course, he’s written many.  Many that he considers far better than Streets of London. But this remains his best known, best loved, and most played track.  It was first recorded 50 years ago, in 1969, for his album Spiral Staircase although it wasn’t released as a single until 1974.   Taking part in Soul Music, alongside Ralph, with their stories and memories connected to Streets of London, are: Jerry Playle, a music producer. His first ever public performance as a teenage guitarist was of Streets of London.  The guitar part went well, but when he opened his mouth to sing, he realised - to his horror - that he couldn't...Gwen Ever, a DJ.  He became homeless in the 1980s. It’s the unlikely punk version of Streets of London by the Anti Nowhere League that reminds him of this time.  Maria Bentley-Dingwall, the daughter of Iris Bentley.  Iris was the sister of Derek Bentley who was hanged for a murder he did not commit.  Iris spent her life campaigning for his conviction to be quashed. Ralph McTell grew up knowing this story, became a friend of the family, wrote a song about the case, and sang Streets of London at Iris Bentley’s funeral.  Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2019.

Streets of London by Ralph McTell

Amy Winehouse died in July 2011 aged just 27. 'Back to Black' - the title track of her second and final album - is a torch song to tragic love, addiction and loss. People who loved her and her music talk about how she helped them cope with their own struggles.Lesley Jamison is now a successful writer, but at 27 she was an alcoholic. She stopped drinking the same year that Amy died. Lesley reflects on how her own life could have followed the same path had she gone further into the darkness or the black of drinking and self-destruction. Daisy Buchanan tells her story of addictive love and how Back to Black helped her break free. Umaru Saidu was a vulnerable teenager with mental health issues who lost a dear childhood friend when he was 17. He later trained at the Amy's Yard programme and is grateful for the inspiration she gave him.  As a young teenager Amy Charles too identified with the pain expressed in Back to Black and says it helped her deal with depression brought on by a spinal injury.Donald Brackett is the author of Back to Black: Amy Winehouse's Only Masterpiece and believes performing the song may have become traumatic for her in the end as it forced her to relive the emotional pain.  Elizabeth Kesses was visiting her terminally ill father at the same hospital where Amy Winehouse was being treated. She recalls seeing her there and hoping she would recover. Sadly it was not to be. But these stories reveal a legacy that goes beyond the music. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2019.

Back to Black

The story of how a song from a classic 1980’s movie became an inspirational anthem for a 21st Century generation.Carly Simon’s ‘Let the River Run’ was originally conceived as the title track for the 1988 movie ‘Working Girl. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It also went on to win the affection of people around the world.Initially thought of as a ‘hymn for New York’, ‘Let the River Run’ encapsulates the spirit of striving for a better life. As Carly Simon puts it herself, “I wanted it to be large, I wanted it to be vast – it’s about bringing forth a common desire into the world”. In more recent years it has become an anthem for Woman's Rights Movements and global initiatives aimed at making a better life for all. Featuring interviews with: *  Carly Simon
*  Ginny Suss - music producer and part of the team who organised the Women’s March on Washington
*  Elisabet Barnes - Ultra Marathon Runner  
*  Nina RitzenMusic from The Resistance Revival Chorus.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer:  Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.

Let the River Run

Charlie Chaplin wrote the music for 'Smile' in 1935 for the film 'Modern Times', but the lyrics were only added nearly 30 years later. Chris Philips tells the story of how his grandfather was inspired to write the words when he left his father at boarding school.Gemma Lowery talks about how her son Bradley loved the song.Writer Bryony Rheam describes why she associates the song with her grandmother.Marine Lucas remembers flying to Michael Jackson's memorial on hearing the news of his death.   And author Bob Williams remembers when his father died, how his mother sat on the floor listening to the Nat King Cole version - crying when he came home from school.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Sara ConkeyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.

Smile

The B-Flat Piano Sonata D960, which Schubert completed two months before his death, in 1828, is a vast and complex work. It’s the last of a triptych of piano sonatas that Schubert wrote, possibly in response to the death of his hero Beethoven the year before. Schubert had been a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral.Pianists Imogen Cooper, Steven Osborne and James Lisney consider what it’s like to play this work.And Andrea Avery and Pamela Rose describe ways in which this sonata has marked and shaped their lives.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Rosie BoultonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.

Schubert’s B-Flat Piano Sonata D960

Shine On You Crazy Diamond discussed by voices, including David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.Understood to have been written about Syd Barrett, their former band member, it’s both a tribute, and a call for him to ‘shine on’ despite suffering serious mental health issues.David Gilmour of Pink Floyd recalls the legendary day that Syd Barrett unexpectedly appeared in the studio where they were recording Wish You Were Here, the album bookended by Shine On.  Nobody recognised Syd at first; once handsome and slender, he'd gained weight and shaved his head and eyebrows.  Anna Gascoigne talks about the pain of losing her son, Jay. He was a gentle boy, a talented musician, who eventually succumbed to the multiple mental health problems he'd battled for years.  Shine On You Crazy Diamond, for Anna, speaks directly to her of Jay; he loved Pink Floyd and Shine On was played at his memorial service. Anna, herself, was driven to the brink of suicide by her son’s death.  It was the support of her family – including her brother, Paul Gascoigne - that helped her to carry on. Ed Steelefox, a DJ based in Worcester, describes a New Year’s Eve house party from a few years ago. As guests gradually fell asleep, he chose to slip out the door leaving a non-stop playlist of different, live, versions of Shine On You Crazy Diamond to penetrate their dreams.And regular Soul Music contributor, Professor Allan Moore takes to the grand piano to play and talk about what it is in the track that is so directly reminiscent of Syd Barrett.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.'Details of organisations offering information and support are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline/Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Soul Music with stories of the lasting impact of Joni Mitchell's song 'River', from her iconic 1971 album Blue. A song about the breakdown of a relationship and of a longing to be elsewhere that has become a melancholy Christmas anthem. It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees 
They're putting up reindeer 
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on....Emotional true stories of what the song means to different people, including:*  Comedian Chris Forbes, who lost his father on Christmas Day
*  Isobel, who fell sick far from home and understands the longing to be elsewhere captured in the song
*  Laura, who heard the song while pregnant at Christmastime
*  Writer Rob Crossan, who will forever associate the song with his first love
*  Canadian poet Lorna Crozier who describes the frozen rivers of her and Joni's Saskatchewan childhoodPlus thoughts from Joni Mitchell's biographer, David Yaffe. Includes a rare live recording of 'River' from a BBC Concert in 1970, hosted by John Peel.  The other versions of the song are by (in order of appearance):Joni Mitchell (Blue, 1971)
Scott Matthews (Live Session for BBC 6 Music, 2011)
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (Jingle All the Way, 2008)
The Belgian indie choir Scala & Kolacny Brothers (Live Session for BBC 6 Music, 2011).Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.Producer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018.

River

"Your true colors...are beautiful, like a rainbow..."Billy Steinberg's lyrics were originally inspired by his mother but his song writing partner Tom Kelly recognised its universal appeal. With a slight re-write, it became the song that Cyndi Lauper made famous the world over. Growing up in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ken Kidd could never truly be himself. Watching Cyndi Lauper perform True Colors on MTV showed him that it was OK to be his authentic self. Years later he describes his pride at watching the Rainbow Flag being raised above the Stonewall National Monument as he and other LGBTQ campaigners sang that same song. Lesley Pyne learnt to sing 'True Colors' with her local choir. It's a song that resonated with her more than she had ever expected. After six attempts at IVF, Lesley had had to come to terms with the knowledge that she wouldn't be able to have children. It wasn't easy. It has taken years of digging deep to work through the grief but now she helps others to find their true colours and firmly believes that they can be beautiful, like a rainbow. And in 1999, Caroline Paige, a jet and helicopter navigator in the Royal Air Force, became the first ever openly serving transgender officer in the British military. She rose above the extraordinary challenges placed before her to show her 'True Colors' whilst serving her country on the front line in the war on terror. Featuring songwriter Billy Steinberg and music from The Rock Choir Producer: Nicola Humphries First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2018.

True Colors

"God only knows what I'd be without you"For artist Kim Lynch God Only Knows is a song that she has carried with her from the moment her father played it to her mother back in their 1960's London home and it's the song that resonated throughout her parents 65 years together. Meanwhile in land locked Burundi, another couple are bought together from two very different cultures. Sharing the same hopes and prayers, they began their married life by blending a traditional wedding ceremony with the Californian song that spans decades - and continents - to touch souls wherever it's played. And across the ocean, Erin Prewitt tells her love story and describes how tragic and unexpected circumstances meant she has had to learn to live out those iconic lyrics and discover what it means to be without the person you love.With reflections from:* Musician, Al Kooper 
* Author, Barry Miles. Producer: Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

God Only Knows

Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun speaks to artists of different kinds. Jamaican poet Ishion Hutchinson recalls hearing it through an open window in Kingston Jamaica and being mesmerised by its beauty, but not knowing what it was, setting off on a quest to find out and to write a poem that captured his feelings about the piece. Babak Kazemi was training to be a doctor in his home city of Tehran when he heard it for the first time. The piece changed his life and led him to abandon his medical studies in Iran to move to the UK to become a professional conductor and composer. Artist Fiona Robinson specialises in interpreting Debussy's works on paper. She explains how she has been moved to visualise the Prelude, while Debussy's biographer Paul Roberts credits it with having changed classical music forever. Katya Jezzard-Puyraud recalls how the music lifted her out of a difficult time after the birth of her first son and how she uses it now to help people with anxiety and stress to relax.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Prelude a l'Apres Midi d'un Faune by Debussy

Why has Procol Harum's surreal track ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’  remained enduringly popular for over 50 years? Soul Music hears the stories and memories of those who love it. Released in May 1967, it was the group's first single. It went to No. 1 in the UK, and stayed there for six weeks.Musicologist, Allan Moore, deconstructs the track and dismisses the almost universally accepted idea that it mimics Bach's ‘Air on a G String’.Film-maker, Chris Rodley, remembers the impact it had on him when he heard it for the first time, in the dead of the night, on pirate Radio Caroline. Musician, James Pollard, explains how he created a wedding march for a friend using this track as inspiration.Thriller writer, Nelson DeMille, describes his year in Vietnam as 'the year without music', but ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is the one song that reminds him of his time there. Singer, Sarah Collins, suffered a brain tumour shortly after the birth of her second child. Making the decision to sing again was fundamental to her healing process. As her Dad, Phil, explains 'Whiter Shade' is his favourite song. He was very moved when she decided to record it for her YouTube channel.Produced at BBC Bristol by Karen Gregor.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum

Actor Clarke Peters narrates this special edition to mark 50 years since the assassination of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King on April 4th 1968. "If in doubt, pray and sing" an activist recalls how music was used as part of Dr King's non-violent resistance movement.The stories of the songs behind the Civil Rights Movement include the spirituals and freedom songs that were integral to the struggle. In the 19th century, music became a tool for protest and resistance among the enslaved peoples of the American South. Hear the stories behind some of the most popular anthems and Freedom Songs that were later used as part of the civil resistance movement that eventually led to voting rights and desegregation. From Swing Low Sweet Chariot and We Shall Overcome to Amazing Grace, Strange Fruit and A Change Is Gonna Come, witnesses to and participants in the Civil Rights Movement recall how songs were such a vital part of the story.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement

Cerys Matthews delves into the archives to put together a specially curated mixtape of her favourite stories from across 25 series of the BBC Radio 4's Soul Music.Each episode of Soul Music takes a different piece of music - it might be a pop song, or a hymn, or a piece of classical music or world music - and looks at why it moves us and what it means to different people. Cerys's choices include Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, Bob Marley's Redemption Song, Puccini's La Boheme and Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come.Producer: Mair Bosworth.

Cerys Matthews' Soul Music Mixtape - Part One

Cerys Matthews' Soul Music Mixtape - Part Two

Cerys Matthews' Soul Music Mixtape - Part Three

How Kraftwerk's classic album Computer World has changed people's lives. On their first wedding anniversary, David Sanborn and Jennifer Huber remember their Kraftwerk themed celebrations. Ramona Gonzales from the band Nite Jewel recounts how a car crash and a chance encounter with Computer World changed the course of her life. And Andy McCluskey from Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark recalls the Kraftwerk concert that inspired his musical career. Kraftwerk were forged in the shadow of the Second World War, out of a desire to create a new, German music. Uwe Schütte from Aston University explains how Computer World embodies the politics of this time and points the way to a computerised future. Brian Carney recalls how the album's glamour and sheen changed his horizons in the industrial town of St Helens. And in South Central Los Angeles Greg Broussard, aka Egyptian Lover, shows how this album brought love into his life. Life, love and an electronic future as experienced through the music of this pioneering German band. Producer: Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2018.

Kraftwerk: Computer World

Boys Don't Cry by The Cure is, on the surface, a tribute to teenage angst and a slice of pop perfection. Lol Tolhurst, the band's drummer, wrote the song with his band mates in Robert Smith's parents' house extension.Poorna Bell saw the song's lyrics echo her husband's struggle with expressing his emotions, and describes the devastating impact which that can have.Runner Derek Redmond recalls the moment he lost his 'game face' at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, and Sara Pacella and Jeffrey Axt chart the changing fortunes of a giant Boys Don't Cry poster.Producer: Sally Heaven.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2018.

Boys Don't Cry

JS Bach wrote his cantata Ich Habe Genug for the Feast of the Purification of Mary to be performed in Leipzig on 2nd February 1727. The work is a retelling of the story of the old man Simeon who, waiting in the temple, was presented with the baby Jesus. As he held the baby in his arms, in Bach's version he says: It is enough.
I have held the Saviour, the hope of all peoples,
In the warm embrace of my arms.
It is enough.Oboist George Caird recalls playing Ich Habe Genug at his father's funeral. Theologian Paula Gooder recalls the effect of putting her new born baby into the arms of an elderly relative. Danish music therapist Lars Ole Bonde tells how this music provided vital solace for him as a teenager growing up with a father suffering from depression.American Susan Dray remembers how the Cantata helped her when she was grieving for her baby. And tenor Ian Bostridge wonders why we never feel that we have "enough".Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer: Rosie BoultonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2018.

Ich Habe Genug

"If you've never heard of Bob Marley then you must be living under a rock" - Neville Garrick, Bob Marley's Art Director and friend. At the time he wrote 'Redemption Song', circa 1979, Bob had been diagnosed with the cancer in his toe that later took his life. It is considered one of his greatest works and continues to inspire generations of Marley fans across the world. For Grammy Award Winning artist John Legend, it's become an anthem for addressing the criminal justice system of America. 'Musicians without Borders' practitioner Ahmed al 'Azzeh finds the song inspires him to work towards a better life in the Palestinian Territories. For Jamaican Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison, it is a reminder to continue Marley's call to 'sing these songs of freedom' and for Bob Scott, it will forever be heard in memory of his nephew Dominick who lost his life during the 2004 Tsunami. Featuring interviews with:Neville Garrick
Wailers Guitarist - Don Kinsley.Producer: Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2017.

Redemption Song

"O' Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining..." and so begins the gentle carol of reflection that has touched the lives of listeners around the world. For The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, it's the carol that lifted his spirits as he lay in a London hospital battling pneumonia. It is also the hymn that inspired a fellow patient to find faith. In Philadelphia it is the song that outreach worker Asteria Vives sang when she took Christmas to the homeless, whilst for singer and songwriter Katie Melua it's the carol that awoke her love of music as an 8 year old child in Belfast. And for Tymara Walker it's the Christmas family favourite which went viral when she sang it on a Washington subway, eventually reaching a worldwide audience of over 5 million. Featuring choral conductor and composer Bob Chilcott.
Producer: Nicola Humphries.

O Holy Night

Sandy Denny was just 19 years old when she wrote 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes?', her much-loved song about the passing of time.Soul Music tells the story behind the song and speaks to people for whom it has special meaning. Record producer Joe Boyd and founder member of Fairport Convention Simon Nicol remember Sandy and her music. We speak to musicians who have covered the song, including folk legend Judy Collins and the singer Rufus Wainwright, about what the song means to them. We hear from people whose lives have been touched by the song, including the singer-songwriter Ren Harvieu, who suffered a back break in a freak accident and found strength in the song during her recovery. And neuroscientist and best-selling author David Eagleman explains why the years seem to fly past ever more quickly as we grow older. Also featuring contributions from Sandy Denny's biographer Mick Houghton and Dr Richard Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University. Producer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2017.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

You Are My Sunshine was written in or around 1939 and was adopted by the then governor of Louisiana, Jimmy Davies, who recorded and used it as his campaign theme song. It has since been recorded by more than 400 artists, from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash to Aretha Franklin and Bryan Ferry. A mother and daughter tell their story of how the song helped the daughter's recovery after a catastrophic car crash, and how it has come to symbolise her struggle to rebuild her life after being in a coma for several months. A resident of 'Tornado Alley' and author of The Mercy of the Sky tells the story of a devastating tornado that hit a town in Oklahoma in 2013, killing several schoolchildren, but how all the toddlers in a nearby daycare centre survived. The staff comforted them by singing You Are My Sunshine as the storm destroyed the building. And pensioner Alice Kennedy fondly recalls a friend from the Irish Pensioners Choir in London, who used to sing the song and add his own cheeky lyrics.Music historian: Paul KingsburyProducer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2017.

You Are My Sunshine

Wagner's peaceful Siegfried Idyll was written to thank his wife after the birth of his son Siegfried. On her birthday in 1870, she awoke to find an orchestra on her staircase performing the music for the first time. It's music which celebrates family relationships, and we hear from people whose lives and relationships have been touched and changed by this remarkable piece.Cellist Nick Trygstad explains how the music conjures up scenes of domestic life and helped him cope with his homesickness when he arrived in the UK. Karen West recalls a 50th birthday treat - a trip across lake Lucerne with her father, to visit Wagner's villa. For Tim Reynish, the music has a special connection with his son - when William was born he recreated the first performance on the staircase of his Birmingham home; many years later he conducted the music at his son's memorial concert. And Roberto Paternostro recalls a historic performance in Germany when he took a group of Israeli musicians to perform Wagner's music for the first time at Bayreuth - the opera house built by Wagner, and later frequented by Adolf Hitler.Producer: Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2017.

Siegfried Idyll

"Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens". Guests from around the world share their special memories of The Sound of Music classic 'My Favourite Things'.Written by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959, this deceptively simple song has travelled the globe to comfort and enthral children the world over. Iranian Astronaut and philanthropist Anousheh Ansari's first encounter with this musical classic was in her native language of Farsi. It's a melody she held dear to her during years of unrest through the Iranian revolution and the war that was to follow. It's also the song that travelled with her as she realised her childhood dream of exploring outer space. For vocal coach Heather Mair Thomas 'My Favourite Things' evokes memories of a happy Cornish childhood, growing up with her musical family. It has also become a reminder to always look for the good in life - come what may. Meanwhile Jazz musician David Lieberman takes us on a journey through the 1960's New York club scene to the night where an encounter with John Coltrane's version of 'My Favourite Things' changed his life forever.Plus Sound of Music fan Emma Poulton-White relives her very special wedding day that was topped off with a 'copper kettle' . Featuring Tom Santopietro author of 'The Sound of Music Story'.Producer:  Nicola Humphries First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2017.

My Favourite Things

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks was released in 1967. Soul Music hears the poignant, thoughtful and life-changing memories of those who love it.Childhood holidays were an escape from bullying for John Harvey. He describes the unforgettable moment when he heard Waterloo Sunset for the first time, on the radio, in 1967. Getting to know the music of The Kinks, and finding out about the character of its lead singer, Ray Davies, shaped and coloured his life from then on.Allison Moore Adams is an American who married Vernon, a Brit. Waterloo Sunset was sung at his bedside following a terrible road accident. The painting used to illustrate this edition of Soul Music is of Vernon and Allison on Waterloo Bridge. It's by Allison's friend, Isabelle Logie, who also sang to Vernon in hospital.Christopher Young used to work in mental health. For him, the lyrics of Waterloo Sunset symbolise the isolation that many people feel.Professor Allan Moore, a musicologist, discusses why this beautiful pop song works so well.Producer: Karen GregorFirst brodacast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2017.

Waterloo Sunset

America's national anthem was written by a lawyer, Francis Scott Key, after watching the British navy bombing Fort McHenry in 1814. It was set to an English social men's club song and recognized as the national anthem in 1889. Notoriously difficult to sing, and traditionally played at public sports events and orchestral concerts, the anthem has inspired emotion and attracted controversy. We hear from: 
 
*  Dr John Carlos who, along with Dr Tommie Smith, raised his fist on the Olympic podium in the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, as the anthem was played.*  Jose Feliciano who sang the anthem at the 1968 World series and provoked criticism.*  Conrad Netting IV who discovered the truth about his fighter pilot father's history, which led him to a cemetery in Normandy.*  Writer Crista Cloutier who associated it with President Obama's election.*  Members of the Coldstream Guards band, who played the anthem at the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on the day after 9/11. *  Leon Hendrix, Jimi's brother, who was in the army at the time of Woodstock, and was put on 'potato peeling duty' because of the 'dishonourable' version his brother had played.Producer Sara ConkeyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2016.

The Star-Spangled Banner

Memories of first love, first borns and loss are stirred by 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'.This timeless love song was written by Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, and made famous by Roberta Flack. Activist and folk musician Peggy Seeger recalls her first meeting with the  Scottish folk musician, which would inspire him to write the song, and talks about what the song means to her today. Ewan MacColl's biographer Ben Harker explains why this song is so different from much of his other work. Julie Young talks about singing the song to her son Reagan, who had severe complex needs following a cardiac arrest as a baby.Writer Louise Janson speaks about what the song came to mean to her as she set out on the path to becoming a mother on her own. Writer and academic Jason King tells the story of how Roberta Flack came to cover this ballad, and how it catapulted her to fame. And Kandace Springs, a singer and pianist from Nashville, Tennessee, records her version of the song and talks about why the song is one of the greatest love songs of all time. Producer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

"Jerusalem" has become a quintessentially middle-class and very English song, but it's also held in the hearts and memories of people from different backgrounds and cultures. There is a bit of cricket - commentator Jonathan Agnew (Aggers) discusses England's stunning and unexpected victory in the 2005 Ashes. Jerusalem reminds him of that extraordinary summer. Pamela Davenport is the daughter of a man who felt that the words of Jerusalem highlighted inequality in society; lack of money prevented him fulfilling his academic potential and he died in a care home that didn't care well enough for him. For American poet, Ann Lauterbach, the unusual and little-known Paul Robeson version was the theme-tune to her escape from the difficult years of Nixon and Vietnam to 1960s London.Singer, Janet Shell, recalls the burial of her Great Uncle who was killed during World War One, but whose body was only discovered in 2009.Susanne Sklar - a scholar of William Blake - discusses the inspiration behind the words of the poem. Probably, she says, he wrote them while awaiting his trial for sedition; he was in trouble for fighting with a soldier who had urinated in his garden.Composer and writer, Paul Spicer, plays, sings and talks through the tune which was composed by Sir Hubert Parry.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2016.

Jerusalem

Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come has become synonymous with the American Civil Rights Movement.It was released in December 1964, two weeks after the influential singer was shot dead in Los Angeles. Contributors include: Sam Cooke's brother LC, singer Bettye Lavette who sang it for Barack Obama at his inaugural ceremony and civil rights activists from the Freedom Summer of 64, Jennifer Lawson and Mary King.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016.

A Change Is Gonna Come, by Sam Cooke

'Feed The Birds' was written for the film Mary Poppins by Richard and Robert Sherman.

Feed the Birds

How Mozart's Requiem, written when he was dying, has touched and changed people's lives. Crime writer Val McDermid recalls how this music helped her after the loss of her father. Hypnotist Athanasios Komianos recounts how the piece took him to the darker side of the spirit world. And a friend of ballet dancer Edward Stierle, Lissette Salgado-Lucas, explains how Eddie turned his struggle with HIV into a ballet inspired by Mozart's music.Basement Jaxx used the Requiem in their live shows while Felix Buxton reveals his love for Mozart and the divine nature of the Requiem. And Mozart expert Cliff Eisen takes us inside the composer's world: how the orchestra and choir conjure visions of funerals, beauty, hellfire and the confusion of death. He recounts how Mozart was commissioned to write the piece by a nobleman who may have intended to pass off the work as his own. The stern challenge faced by people trying to complete the piece are described by composer Michael Finnissy, who himself wrote a completion of the work.The Requiem was performed at the funerals of many heroic figures - Beethoven, Napoleon and JF Kennedy, among others. Gordana Blazinovic remembers one extraordinary performance during the horrors of the Bosnian war - a show of defiance and grief from the ruins of Sarajevo City Hall.Producer:  Melvin Rickarby.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016.

Mozart's Requiem

'The Way You Look Tonight' was written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields for the 1936 film 'Swing Time'. Sung by Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers while she was washing her hair, the song won an Oscar. It has been recorded by Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Sarah Woodward, daughter of actor Edward, recalls how aged seven, she watched him sing it on The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show with his 'angelic' voice.Theatre director Michael Bawtree remembers the song being his father's favourite, and being distraught when he broke the gramophone record as a five-year-old.And Glaswegian singer, Eddie Toal describes making an album of jazz songs, including 'The Way You Look Tonight' to remember his late wife, Irene.Series about pieces of music that make a powerful emotional impact.  Producer: Sara Conkey    First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016.

The Way You Look Tonight

Memories of a prison camp in the Arizona desert, a tsunami and a plane crash are stirred by the bittersweet Japanese song Sukiyaki, a huge global hit of the 1960s.Originally released in Japan with the title 'Ue o Muite Arukou' ('I Look Up As I Walk'), the song was retitled 'Sukiyaki' (the name for a type of beef stew) for international release. It went to No 1 in the USA, Canada and Australia and placed in the top 10 of the UK singles chart. With melancholy lyrics set to a bright and unforgettable melody, it has since been covered hundreds of times in countless languages. California peach farmer Mas Masumoto tells the story of his family's internment in an Arizona relocation camp following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and explains what the song meant to him and many other Japanese-Americans in the years after the Second World War. Violinist and composer Diana Yukawa plays the song as a way to remember her father, who died in the same plane crash that killed Kyu Sakamoto, the original singer of 'Sukiyaki'. Michael Bourdaghs, author of 'Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon', talks about the songwriting team behind the song (Rokusuke Ei, Hachidai Nakamura and Kyu Sakamoto), and the surprising roots of the song in the Japanese protest movement of the early 1960s. Janice-Marie Johnson of A Taste of Honey talks about writing an English version of the song and how she interpreted the Japanese lyrics. While Gemma Treharne-Foose speaks about her experience of travelling to Japan from her home in the Rhondda Valleys, and what the song came to mean to her. And we hear the story of how Ue o Muite Arukou became a 'prayer for hope' following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 from musician Masami Utsunomiya. Producer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2016

Sukiyaki (Ue o Muite Arukou)

Bring Him Home is a beautiful and moving prayer-in-song that has developed meaning and identity outside of the hit musical, from Les Miserables.What has been its impact?  Celebrated tenor, Alfie Boe has sung it many times in the West End and on Broadway.  He discusses what the song means to him.Herbert Kretzmer talks about the agonising process of writing the lyrics.The Greater Manchester Police Male Voice Choir recorded a version especially for the programme; one of their members describes singing it at the funeral of PC Dave Phillips in 2015.The original Cosette, from Les Miserables, Rebecca Caine now sings this song - written for a male voice - regularly as part of international recitals.And for Becky Douglas it will forever be a reminder of her daughter whose death inspired the foundation of a leprosy charity.Jeremy Summerly, Director of Music at St Peter's College, Oxford plays through the piece and describes why it moves us emotionally.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016.