157 episodes

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact

Soul Music BBC Radio 4

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.8 • 242 Ratings

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact

    Songs My Mother Taught Me

    Songs My Mother Taught Me

    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 Adolf Heyduk to music. Songs My Mother Taught Me is the fourth song in the cycle.
    Songs my Mother taught me
    In the days long vanished
    Seldom from her eyelids
    Were the teardrops banished....
    It's a wistful melancholic piece evoking memory and loss. Soul Music hears the stories of musicians, poets and singers from around the world of why they are so drawn to it.
    The poet Raine Geoghegan is the daughter of a Romany woman whose life was weighed down with the loss of her father at a young age. Raine identifies with the sadness of the music because it not only represents grief at the loss of her father but also for the loss of a way of life for the gypsy people.
    For Emily MacGregor it's all about the music we inherit from our parents. She is writing a book about music and grief and says this piece perfectly represents the bittersweet feeling of listening to music associated with the loss of a loved one. Dvorak had already lost three children in infancy by the time he wrote his Zigeuner Lieder.
    Paris based violinist and conductor Bartu Elci-Ozsoy associates Songs with the innocence of childhood and was moved to perform it at a benefit concert he organised in aid of the children affected by the devastating earthquake in his native Turkey and Syria in early 2023.
    The Korean soprano Sumi Jo recorded it in honour of her mother and presented it to her a year before she died in gratitude for her determination to see her daughter become a professional singer.
    When The Scotsman newspaper commissioned a series of lockdown concerts in Spring 2020 cellist Sua-Lee chose to recreate the concert by Beatrice Harrison a century earlier when she played the piece accompanied by nightingales in her garden in Surrey. Sua set up her cello in woodland near her home in Grantown- on-Spey and performed Songs My Mother Taught Me to a collection of woodland creatures
    Singer Ruby Hughes performed the American composer Charles Ives' version of the piece for a collection called Bright Travellers - music curated and composed by Helen Grimes from poems by Fiona Benson. Ives wrote his own version of Dvorak's piece not long after the Czech composer had settled in America. She loves the rocking gentle lullaby sensation created by the lilting melodies of both Ives' and Dvorak's compositions.
    Featuring additional recordings by Sua Lee and Zoe Challenor
    Producer: Maggie Ayre

    • 27 min
    Fire and Rain

    Fire and Rain

    James Taylor's song of suicide, loneliness and addiction somehow remains hopeful and uplifting, even as people experience their own dark times.
    Holly Sinclair was driving through a Missouri winter to see her brother, in hospital after a suicide attempt, when the song came on the radio.
    Michael Granberry, arts writer for the Dallas Morning News, is also a huge James Taylor fan. He's the same age as Taylor, and reflects on the context of assassinations and war raging in America when he wrote Fire and Rain.
    Peter Asher was James Taylor's manager and producer, and remembers their first meeting, and the first time he heard Fire and Rain.
    Marcia Hines released a successful cover version of the song after moving from America to Australia as a teenager, and hearing the song blasting out of radios on both sides of the world.
    Mark Deeks and Jeff Alexander from Sing United community choir talk about the emotions generated when people sing a song they feel a connection to.
    And Peter Bardaglio, climate change activist, talks about a summer of fire and rain.
    Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven

    • 27 min
    Pata Pata

    Pata Pata

    Miriam Makeba recorded 'Pata Pata' in 1967 with the help of American producer Jerry Ragovoy. It became a huge hit and Miriam Makeba used newfound fame to speak the injustices of apartheid. Her records were banned and South Africa and she was forced to live in exile. Here, people from around the world share their stories about what this iconic track means to them.
    Actor John Kani grew up in Johannesburg remembers dancing to the song when it came on the radio and says that Miriam Makeba became an inspiration for how art could bring about change. He would meet her years later after a concert in New York, and again in Johannesburg after apartheid ended.
    Author of 'Makeba: the Miriam Makeba Story', Nomsa Mwamuka, charts the history of 'Pata Pata' and why Makeba would come to see it as "frivilous".
    Buks van Heerden is a pace-runner who has completed over 800 marathons. He plays 'Pata Pata' late in the race when the runners he's pacing are getting tired and says it always lifts the mood.
    Angelique Kidjo says Miriam Makeba was the first African woman on the cover of an album. Hearing 'Pata Pata' inspired her to perform, and later in life she and Makeba became friends.
    Dr. Niyi Coker devised 'Mama Africa: The Musical' in Cape Town when he realised that a younger generation of South Africans weren't aware of Miriam Makeba of her work. 'Pata Pata' would see two generations of 'Miriam' singing together and it would bring the house down.
    Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Toby Field
    Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
    Editor: Emma Harding
    With thanks to Rita Ray, Dr. Niyi Coker, and Moses Molapisane at the BBC bureau in Johannesburg.

    • 27 min
    Defying Gravity from Wicked

    Defying Gravity from Wicked

    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, power and alienation. The so called Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba born with green skin experiences the pain of growing up different and of longing for acceptance. No surprise then that anybody who has ever felt marginalised or that they don't fit in is drawn to her story. Defying Gravity is Elphaba's war-cry at the end of Act One as she bravely decides to forge her own path in life - to "close her eyes and leap".
    The song has become a powerful anthem for people from all different walks of life and this episode tells some of their stories.
    Edward Pierce the Broadway set designer of Wicked knows the song through and through as he worked on the sequence where Elphaba takes flight and begins Defying Gravity. It wasn't until he became severely ill with Covid that the song took on a different meaning. While he was in an induced coma on a ventilator a nurse sang and hummed Defying Gravity to him. He believes that song played more than a minor role in his recovery. That nurse was singer Felicia Temple who had featured on The Voice America singing talent show performing Defying Gravity. When her musical career was cut short by lockdown in March 2020 she returned to nursing and when she found herself at the bedside of a Broadway set designer there was only one song that came to mind. But it has a personal resonance for her too as she went onto that TV show to sing the song one year on from her own illness with cancer and was resolute that as the song goes 'nothing was ever going to bring me down'.
    The first British singer to play the role of Elphaba in the West End and Broadway is Kerry Ellis. She recounts how that song has given her so much in life and how grateful she is to its strong message of courage.
    Kath Pierce formerly of the Manchester Proud Choir outlines why Defying Gravity is such an important song to the LGTBQ community and why the choir and members of the public took to the trams and streets of Manchester one November evening in defiance of a violent attack against two young gay men. They'd been on their way home on the tram singing songs from Wicked after a night out. Hundreds of people assembled in the city centre and sang Defying Gravity as a protest against the hate crime.
    Musicologist Mel Spencer talks us through the genius of composer Stephen Schwartz's song and how it harks back to Somewhere Over The Rainbow as well as to Wagner!
    Producer: Maggie Ayre

    • 27 min
    I Will Always Love You

    I Will Always Love You

    Written by Dolly Parton... sent stratospheric by Whitney Houston; I Will Always Love You is a song that has a worldwide fanbase reflected by the diverse memories shared here:
    Nagham Kewifati tells how her mother, Mayada Bseliss, had a huge hit in Syria with an Arabic version. It was produced by Nagham's father, Mayada's husband, Samir.
    Dr. Marie Thompson of the Open University, who co-wrote a short course entirely about Dolly Parton, reveals the unlikely story behind the song and why Elvis Presley was refused permission to record his own version.
    Member of Parliament, Jim Shannon, explains why he introduced an unusual Early Day Motion in the House of Commons to celebrate the song's 50th anniversary in 2023.
    Ben Rimalower, host of Giants in the Sky on the Broadway Podcast Network, describes how obsessed he became with Whitney Houston's performances of this track when he was recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.
    Vocal Coach, CeCe Sammy Lightfoot, describes how difficult Whitney Houston's version is to sing and the technique required to perform this vocal high-wire act.
    And Marcus Grimmie, brother of singer Christina Grimmie, remembers his sister's beautiful voice and rise to stardom before she was tragically murdered. He set up the Christina Grimmie Foundation in her memory to create a community and provide financial support for families affected by gun violence.
    Producer: Karen Gregor

    • 27 min
    Fast Car

    Fast Car

    'Fast Car' is one of Tracy Chapman's biggest hits, with listeners from around the world finding striking connections with their own lives in the song's story.
    It was released in April 1988, and that summer, the American singer-songwriter performed it to a global audience of 600 million at Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute. This broadcast catapulted Tracy and the song to super-stardom, as it became a top ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic and received three Grammy nominations.
    Ever since, 'Fast Car' has resonated with people around the world. The lyrics describe a working woman trying to escape a cycle of poverty, dreaming of a plan to leave in a "fast car". She speaks of wanting to get out of the life she finds herself in, living in a shelter, and driving towards the city to find something better.
    This episode features the personal stories of Fitzroy Samuels in Kingston, Jamaica; Priscilla Munson in Indiana, U.S; Gemma Brown in Gateshead, UK and Dev Cuny in California, U.S. We also hear from Alister Wright in Sydney, Australia whose band, Vlossom, covered Fast Car; and Nigel Williamson, music journalist who has met and interviewed Tracy Chapman many times.
    Produced by Eliza Lomas, BBC Audio Bristol

    • 27 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
242 Ratings

242 Ratings

mspassell ,

5667457 stars!!!

These episodes…about why songs are meaningful to us…reduce me to a puddle of tears every time.

weswellner ,

Wonderful podcast

I love learning more about each song and the stories of how the song has affected people. Creativity and artistry are explored and felt in a way that only music and personal stories can evoke. Please keep producing more episodes. Thank you.

Beady333 ,

Hope for More

I love this podcast so much. This podcast gives me joy and comfort. I have learned lot about music that I did not know before. Thank you! Now more episodes please!

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