#9 - The Makings of You / Curtis Mayfield

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

Om Podcasten

Award-winning music analysis podcast, The Secret Life of Songs, returns with a new series exploring classic songs from the 1970s and 80s. Hear how the fallout from the disappointed hopes of the 1960s was explored in the work of Sly Stone and Joni Mitchell, how the unearthly new sounds unlocked by radical new music technology was used to express both utopian and dystopian impulses by Giorgio Moroder and the originators of Detroit Techno, and how the era’s most divisive cultural concept - postmodernism - was uncannily reflected in the output of the era’s most divisive pop band - ABBA. All of this - and more - is presented by host Anthony in his inimitable style: deftly weaving fine-grained musical analysis, historical context and philosophical reflection with his own impassioned recreations of the music to produce embodied, thoroughly grounded and deeply personal insights into these wonderful songs. 

Winner of the bronze award in 'Best Arts & Culture Podcast' at the British Podcast Awards 2021.