FT music critics and contributors discussed the story of a song, from its origins and early recordings through cover versions good and bad.
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From the unstoppable rise of hip-hop to the 'millennial whoop', what does today's ne…
When "Wuthering Heights" was released 40 years ago this year, it became the first so…
Set against a backdrop of protest and upheaval, the songs released in 1968 represent…
What makes a good Christmas song?
Billie Holiday’s 1939 'Strange Fruit' was called 'the first significant protest in w…
From Bob Dylan to Adele, the song that was first called 'a spare ballad undermined b…
In a special episode to mark the publication of The Life of a Song book, FT pop crit…
It achieved distinction in an era of elemental riffs, and journeyed effortlessly to …
The singer’s old label boss called the song ‘a morbid mess’, but it shot to number o…
Twenty years after they headlined Glastonbury, Radiohead return to the British music…
David Honigmann looks at how a sleeping Keith Richards dreamt up a riff that would l…
David Cheal looks at how Bob Dylan took inspiration from an old Scottish border ball…
Helen Brown looks at how Serge Gainsbourg's infamously salacious love song originall…
Ian McCann takes a look at one of the greatest and most culturally influential rap s…
Sue Norris explores how a B-side by a little known American singer, Gloria Jones bec…
Ian McCann looks at how a turn-of-the-century Neopolitan ballad was adapted into a h…
Helen Brown looks at how the most successful Disney song of all time became an unlik…
Peter Aspen looks at how The Eagles turned a few improvised chords into one of the m…
Sue Norris on how Cissy Houston and Gladys Knight respectively transformed the sound…
Harriet Fitch Little on how Dolly Parton's anti-work anthem went from the movies to …
Amy Walker on how a saccharine love song was transformed by Otis Redding into a prov…
David Cheal traces the song's journey from a forgotten 1950s melodrama to an endurin…
The Japanese hit has been renamed and redefined by western artists from the Gipsy Ki…
Paul Anka originally wrote the song for, and in the persona of, Frank Sinatra, claim…
For more than 50 years, this ballad's haunting charms have proved irresistible to ma…
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