"to dwell on the mysteries of feeling and memory"

February 20, 2022 2:20 PM

Soul Music is a long running BBC radio series. Each episode focuses on a particular piece of music, concentrating less on the artists behind it, but on the way the music has affected its listeners. Recent episodes have featured songs by Massive Attack, John Denver and Nina Simone. Besides pop songs, it covers classical, hymns, folk, jazz and more. The music is mostly drawn from the Anglophone world, but it ventures further afield too, like Finland, Japan, Wales, France, and South Africa. Hua Hsu wrote about Soul Music for The New Yorker in a piece called The Anti-Explainer Insight of “Soul Music”.
posted by Kattullus (7 comments total)

A. Seeing the phrase soul music and the name John Denver dropped within a mere three sentences was a shock to the system.
B. Because Take Me Home, Country Roads by Toots and the Maytals was my first thought upon recovering therefrom.
posted by y2karl at 2:35 PM on February 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

Brilliant series. I had been working on a post for this program and at first was disappointed I was pipped at the post, as it were. Then I saw it was by Kattullus, author of so many brilliant music posts and contributor of hilarious Eurovision commentary, and all was right with the world again. :)

Some favorites listened to recently:
Toto’s Africa
The Way You Look Tonight
Wichita Lineman
New York, New York
I Will Survive
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 3:42 PM on February 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I hadn't heard of this, but its funny seeing Hua Hsu pop up. We were roommates / partners in debate camp in high school ten million years ago, we definitely went on different paths from there, but I got back in touch with him briefly at some point, I guess when he was writing something for the Village Voice, and its cool seeing the topics he writes across.

Anyway, thanks for the links, this sounds like something right up my alley.
posted by lkc at 5:26 PM on February 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Almost 30 years ago I was staying in a remote town in rural Japan - I can't remember its name - but I remember, after getting very drunk in a local bar, staggering down a dirt road back to a youth hostel in the company of a Korean man (he was was a sales rep for a condom manufacturer) - and we were singing 'Country Roads' at the top of our lungs. He couldn't speak a lot of English but he knew those lyrics by heart. A lovely memory.
posted by misterbee at 6:52 PM on February 20, 2022 [7 favorites]

Fascinating, thanks Kattulus, will have to give it a listen. Cool how it takes sometimes up to five years to produce an episode, just tracking down the song listeners and their stories.
posted by storybored at 8:22 AM on February 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thanks so much for posting this. I've had an MP3 of their excellent 'Wichita Lineman' program for a while now, but didn't realize it was part of a series.
posted by Rash at 9:58 AM on February 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is one of my favorite podcasts ever, for the way it makes me feel music again, which I think I've turned away from during the pandemic. Since my Scottish-American friend recommended the Sunshine on Leith episode (a song I'd never heard before), I've been hooked. I've cried at more than one episode. Biggest tears? The Smalltown Boy episode. I had never heard this song, I am not gay, I am not British, and I do not come from a small town. But I do come from an abusive family and I have always identified as an outsider who doesn't belong anywhere. It was bittersweet to listen to the anguish and the redemption of so many hurting LGBTQIA people seeking to belong, their coming out stories, their finding their cultural & spiritual homes and families. I didn't know I needed my heart broken in quite that way until I listened to this episode.

Thank you for this post, Kattullus.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 12:24 PM on February 21, 2022 [4 favorites]