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Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact
"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"...
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...
"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 yea...
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...
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. Cer...
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 kis...
"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 af...
Robert Burns began a correspondence with Agnes McElhose, also known as Clarinda and Nancy, a married woman he was besotted with. When she le...
Stories of love, loss and legacy surrounding Donna Summer's iconic 1977 hit. Producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte wanted to make some...
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 Fo...
Sir Karl Jenkins' Benedictus is the penultimate movement from his anti-war mass, The Armed Man. Written twenty-five years ago this year and...
"Lovely Day" was released in 1977. Its simple blissful melody masks profound lyrics which on closer examination offer hope and solace to man...
"Tender is the night lying by your side / Tender is the touch of someone that you love too much..." - Chris Lightfoot will always associate...
“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...
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...
"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 tr...
"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 b...
Written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh Kay, Someone To Watch Over Me has endured as a tender ballad about searching for someone speci...
Sweet Thing by Van Morrison has an atmosphere full of tenderness, wonder and joy. But underneath this, there a feeling of transience, a mela...
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 Adol...
James Taylor's song of suicide, loneliness and addiction somehow remains hopeful and uplifting, even as people experience their own dark tim...
Miriam Makeba recorded 'Pata Pata' in 1967 with the help of American producer Jerry Ragovoy. It became a huge hit and Miriam Makeba used new...
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,...
Written by Dolly Parton... sent stratospheric by Whitney Houston; I Will Always Love You is a song that has a worldwide fanbase reflected by...
'Fast Car' is one of Tracy Chapman's biggest hits, with listeners from around the world finding striking connections with their own lives in...
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...
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...
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"....
Some people say it's a protest song about the commercialisation of Christmas, others that it's anti religious. 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 w...
"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 e...
"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 peopl...
Powerful stories linked to this beautiful and stirring Ukrainian folk song. Chervona Kalyna inspired Pink Floyd to reform so they could rele...
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 thro...
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 Yor...
"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...
**** 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 celebr...
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 Am...
More gospel than rock, this 1987 hit has inspired great change in people's lives and created memories for music lovers across the world. Bre...
"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 wh...
Personal stories inspired by Massive Attack's breakthrough single. Featuring the vocals of Shara Nelson, the track together with its iconic...
Ezio Pinza was the first person to sing Some Enchanted Evening when South Pacific opened on Broadway in 1949. His granddaughter, Sarah Goody...
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...
"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 t...
"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...
The Carpenters - brother and sister duo Richard and Karen - were one of the most popular groups of the 1970s. His outstanding compositions a...
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. Relea...
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 ant...
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 it...
Stories from people about how ‘Once In A Lifetime’, Talking Heads' existential hit from 1980, touched their lives. Talking Heads emerged out...