Mathematical Institute Bulletin: Song of the Week

Some pieces of music are very familiar, but the composer not known. 'Fanfare' was written by American composer Aaron Copland in 1942 in the wake of his country's entry in to the Second World War.

Written in the late sixteenth century, this song is typical of Dowland's melancoly ways. But is also catchy. An Elizabethan pop song perhaps.

Steven Rickards is the counter-tenor, Dorothy Linell plays the lute.

So famous you've never heard of them, Fanny were one of the first all-female rock bands. This track is a cover of a Beatles song (who you probably have heard of). It is from an episode of Beat Club, the legendary German sixties and seventies music programme. It has a treasure trove of performances from the period.

Reworking your old material is risky - not just in music - but when Gene Clark turned this track from a speedy psychedelic Byrds song in to a country rock ballad he produced something very different and very tender. Much feted now, it never really happened for Gene as a solo artist in his lifetime. A familiar story.

Ask your local chatbot to tell you about the Slits and it will gleefully splutter words like 'disruptive' and 'anarchic'. But in its excitement, it might omit 'pretty good'. Which they were, right down to the drumming from non-girl Budgie.

The music starts at 1.15, but meet the typical girls first.

The Clash didn't have much time for love songs. Too much social discontent, revolution and nuclear fear going on. And when they did, in the case of 'Train in Vain', it wasn't even listed on the album. It just appeared at the end of one side. Turned out okay though.

'Steal Away' is a 19th century spiritual composed by Wallace Willis, a slave of a Choctaw freedman. These songs often contained hidden messages about joining the Underground Railroad which took the slaves to freedom in the north, as seems the case in the lyrics of this track. It is now a gospel staple, here in the mellifluous tones of Sam Cooke.

A couple of you (and only a couple) have asked about a list of previous 'Songs of the Week'. If you search under 'Song of the Week' on the website it will bring up the list.

What's all the fuss about AI and robots? Kraftwerk predicted it over 40 years ago with the Computer World album. Here they are singing about the loneliness of home computer life and online dating. Earlier they had imagined robots playing their gigs. They eventually did.

ChatGPT's favourite band?

Sometimes a piece of music is so familiar you don't listen to it. Sergei Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto is one example, not least because of its appearance in films and other artists' work. But forget all that and listen to a romantic masterpiece. This is the adagio played by Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili.

PS: Sergei is 150 this year.

If you are ever at a loose end you could always download the hundreds of studio and live albums made by jazz musician Miles Davis as he travelled (and led) the jazz landscape from the late 40s to the 80s.

This track is one of the first recordings he ever made.

Some nihilism for the weekend courtesy of one of the first recordings made by the original Buzzcocks line-up on 28th December 1976. Given that boredom was one of the themes of punk's 'rebellion', including against the 'boring' 15 minute album tracks of the time, you might think this fitted perfectly. But in fact it is about boredom with the punk movement itself even though it was only a few months old in the UK.

The guitar solo features two notes repeated 66 times.

Hip-hop is 50 this month. The story goes that it began when Cindy Campbell hosted a jam in the rec room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx to raise money to buy school clothes (you can do take a hip-hop tour of key locations). Hip hop has blurred into and inspired many other genres, notably rap and drill, but at its heart is the DJ, the MC and the B-boys and B-girls (dancers) as well as the graffiti (think New York subway trains).

The album that was trashed at the time only to be considered a classic years later. Yes, a staple of music (and all art for that matter).

Dexy's Midnight Runners were riding high after the success of 'Come on Eileen'. Cue band leader Kevin Rowland changing their look and their luck. This song from the subsequent album 'Don't Stand Me Down' (most critics did) is actually 12 minutes long (and better) but this is the short version. They are still around to tell the tale.

'Uptight' is the song that rescued 15-year-old Stevie Wonder's career (yes, you can be washed up at 15). It is also the first song he co-wrote. Motown songwriters Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby were his co-writers. And check out the drumming by Benny Benjamin.

The BBC Proms have recently started, nearly two months of music at the Royal Albert Hall in London, largely classical, but not exclusively. You can listen to it all on BBC Sounds.

Tonight's concert spotlights the Portuguese musical tradition of fado so here is Song of the Week's own piece of fado from one of the stars of the genre which can be traced back over two centuries (two centuries of melancholy and loss as is the fado tradition).

This song is in fact a combination of two songs, both from the Musical 'Hair', but in Nina Simone's hands it is an anthem. And jeez, does she mean it. 

Dateline London, 1968

We each hear something different in music. Ostensibly 'The Very Thought of You' is a love song of contentment. But isn't there a hint of melancholy in Al's voice, a 1930s Mayfair club at 2am, almost empty, the band striking up a last song while the last guest reflects?

Roobarb is a green dog. Custard is a pink cat. This is Johnny Hawksworth's 21-second theme tune.

This one goes out to everyone who has had their name misspelt by your Bulletin editor in emails over the years; and indeed, to anyone, perpetrator or victim, undone by clumsy fingers or spellcheck.

New York, 25 October 1927. The jazz age and prohibition (banning of alcohol) were in in full 'swing'. Bix, burning briefly, comes in with his cornet at about 35 seconds. About 100 years ago.

While Pink Floyd are best-known for the mega hit (and mega hard work to some) albums such as 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'The Wall', their earliest incarnation under singer and songwriter Syd Barrett was as a psychedelic and whimsical sixties band.

The 'video' is filmed in Belgium.

In Mental Health Awareness Week, here's a short workshop courtesy of the Drifters and songwriting geniuses Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

The Smiths are the perfect marmite band. Fans adore them. Non-fans really don't.

This is the first track on their first album and perhaps as good as anything they made. Either way, it's not bad, whatever your feelings about marmite.

Franciscan nun Sister Irene O'Connor began singing when a teacher in Singapore in the 1960s. The following decade, together with producer Sister Marimil Lobregat, she recorded the 'Fire of God's Love' album which has become a cult classic for its psychedelic-folky sound. Have a listen. It might not be what you'd expect, but it is perhaps consoling.

Like people, songs have afterlives, often long after being initially ignored.

The Passenger, from the 1977 album 'Lust for Life', was released as the b-side (the flip side of vinyl singles) of the ignored single 'Success'. But gradually it made its way in to the mainstream until it became a relentless favourite of movie directors and advertising agencies. All of which is great for Iggy though these different contexts can maybe detract from simply listening to the song.

David Bowie plays the piano (and sings).