Soul Music

Supporting Content

• Six hopeful songs that have helped people through adversity

  How songs can inspire and unite in the darkest of situations

  

• Six love songs that celebrate growing older

  Love isn’t just the preserve of the young - it's with us until our twilight years.

  

• Soul Music: Seven famous songs inspired by classical music

  Famous songs which take inspiration from classical music's greatest composers...

  

• Baroque 'n' Roll: 10 things you might not know about God Only Knows

  The fascinating facts behind The Beach Boys' enduring, smash-hit number.

  

• Six life-changing pieces of music

  How our favourite music can shape us and soundtrack significant moments in our lives.

  

• 11 of the best songs about London

  Classic songs inspired by the fierce energy of England's capital city.

  

• How does The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset make the "very ordinary seem magical"?

  Watch Professor Allan Moore explain why Ray Davies' 1967 ode to London works so well.

  

  Duration: 3:43

• 10 real-life love stories and the heartbreaking songs they inspired

  It takes real emotion to inspire a truly moving love song. Here are 10 of the best.

  

• Why Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' became a Civil Rights anthem

  Watch the animation - Professor Mary King describes how the song became a symbol of hope.

  

  Duration: 2:15

• The Protest Songs Quiz

  You know the songs, but what were they written in protest against?

  

• An 'orderly, humane' lynching

  Sylvia Wong Lewis describes how her uncle was executed by a Mississippi mob in 1901.

  

  Duration: 1:26

• "Anyone who looked Japanese became the enemy..."

  California peach farmer Mas Masumoto on what the Japanese song Sukiyaki means to him

  

  Duration: 3:26

• The enduring power of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

  How did three versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah come to chart simultaneously?

  

  Duration: 1:35

• "Like being picked up by a giant wave that doesn't break"

  Conductor Christopher Gayford explains how Beethoven's 5th Symphony changed his life.

  

  Duration: 1:08

• When P.P. Arnold played Portsmouth

  Rosemarie Purdy explains why she's never forgotten seeing P.P. Arnold sing live.

  

  Duration: 2:23

• "The St Matthew Passion saved my life"

  Classical guitarist Andrew Schulman on the moment The St Matthew Passion saved his life

  

  Duration: 3:22

• Fiona Phillips on losing her father to Alzheimer's

  Soul Music on Crazy - the song made famous by Patsy Cline.

  

  Duration: 2:10

• Rev Richard Coles on Don't Leave Me This Way

  Rev Richard Coles, formerly of The Communards, talks about the significance of the song.

  

  Duration: 1:32

• "You can't sing and cry at the same time..."

  Janice-Marie Johnson of A Taste of Honey on her English version of Sukiyaki

  

  Duration: 3:15

• Podcasts and Downloads

  Subscribe to this programme or download individual episodes.

  

• Samantha Lewis sings the Coventry Carol

  Samantha Lewis sings the Coventry Carol

  Duration: 2:28

• "There’s a sense of impending loss running through the song”

  Artist Kim Lynch recalls the important part God Only Knows played in her parents’ lives.

  Duration: 2:41

• A Whiter Shade of Pale – is it really based on Bach?

  Musicologist Allan Moore dismisses the popular idea that it mimics Air on a G String.

  Duration: 2:17

• “I play for my dead friends”

  The cellist of Sarajevo Vedran Smailovic played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor in the siege

  Duration: 5:33
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