Peter, Paul And Mary - puff the magic dragon, 1963

"The song tells the story of an ageless dragon named Puff and his playmate, Jackie Paper, as they embark on adventures in the imaginary land of Honalee. As time passes, Jackie matures and abandons his childhood games, leaving Puff alone and saddened. Lipton, who was acquainted with Peter Yarrow through a mutual friend at Cornell, used Yarrow's typewriter to commit his poem to paper. He forgot about it until years later, when a friend informed him that Yarrow was seeking him to properly credit him for the lyrics. Upon reconnecting, Yarrow shared half of the songwriting credit with Lipton, who received royalties for the song until his death in 2022. Yarrow later died in 2025. Yarrow now sings the line "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys" as "A dragon lives forever, but not so girls and boys", to be more inclusive. The original poem included a stanza about Puff finding a new playmate, but this was not incorporated into the song. The paper left in Yarrow's typewriter in 1959 has since been lost."

REM - beachball, 2001

"The song starts off very uniquely, especially for a R.E.M. track. The first sound you hear is this electronic drum beat that almost sounds 8-bit like it’s from a Casio keyboard. It’s soon contrasted by this huge sounding chorus of strings and horns. The melody is straight up Burt Bacharach with shades of the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds when it comes to the guitar riff panned to the left. This orchestration sounds big but at the same time sounds very relaxed which might have the do with the song’s slower tempo."

Stars - through the mines, 2012

"The album's cover shows the Habitat 67 complex, an experimental housing development as well as architectural landmark in Montreal, the band's home city."

Saint Etienne - california snow story, 1993

"So Tough is easy to identify with while still managing to transcend the ordinary. With songs sandwiched between spoken-word interludes, the album has an air of quiet narrative intensity—not unlike Woody Allen’s output-circa Interiors. From the beautifully intense “Hobart Paving” (a Van Dyke Parks arranged version of the song closes out the bonus disc), to the darkly mysterious “Junk the Morgue,” to the Beach Boys pop of “You’re in a Bad Way,” So Tough provides a moment of introspection for almost every mood—without once compromising Saint Etienne’s core sound."

The Mary Onettes - evil coast, 2013

"The Mary Onettes went full beach vibes for their video for “Evil Coast,” an almost cruel visual for those of us longing for warmer climes in the middle of still-snowy March. Now that we’re dangling our legs into the pool of summer, the Swedish indie-pop group have flipped the script and dropped a barren, black and white clip for their comfortingly beautiful" 

Such a great song!

The National - eucalyptus, 2023

"It’s too painful to think about who gets that tree, who gets that plant? And that’s why I tried to make a fun song out of it….This one I wrote really fast. It’s one of the darker songs on it [the record] but I was having more fun writing this one."

Micheál And Eilish - skibbereen cover, 1990

"Skibbereen", also known as "Dear Old Skibbereen", "Farewell to Skibbereen", or "Revenge For Skibbereen", is an Irish folk song, in the form of a dialogue wherein a father tells his son about the Irish famine, being evicted from their home, and the need to flee as a result of the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848."

AC Newman - i'm not talking, 2012

"Like all of Newman’s best tracks, the single is an instantly lovable melodic gem with a great arrangement and nostalgic, relatable lyrics. I love the bleep-bloopy synth arpeggio that anchors this track, along with the breezy, full bodied acoustic guitars and the arching horn melody, which appears in the intro and returns valiantly in the chorus. Sonically, it’s not far off from what the New Pornographers were doing on their last album Together, but Newman clearly works well with that aesthetic."

The Go-Betweens - surfing magazines, 2000

"Forster is still reliving that summer feeling in his sixties. Audiences still join in the wistful wordless chorus. And old folk smile in their cars and hum along while zipping past Australian farmhouses on forty degree days, wondering what happened to their fourteen year old selves."

Elton John - japanese hands, 1988

"I’ve been wanting to write about this song – Japanese Hands – for a while. It is one of my favorites from Reg Strikes Back. And given the tragic events of the last few days, I felt compelled to write about it tonight. The song exemplifies the beauty and grace of Japan in a way that (I think) so many westerners perceive it. (Is that too broad of a generalization)? As I see the images of destruction and devastation, my heart is broken – as I’m sure everyone’s is."

The Triffids - the seabirds, 1986

"Born Sandy has possibly the best opening moment of any record I've heard as Dave's vocal comes straight in on the first lines of The Seabirds - No foreign pair of dark sunglasses could ever shield you from/ the light that pierces your eyelids the screaming of the gulls... This is no ordinary song and this is so because Dave took a stand against the ordinary. He didn't care that we were recording a song that couldn't be easily reproduced on stage, he didn't care that it took him six months or more to write the defining couplet in the song - She said what's the matter now lover boy has the cat run off with your tongue Are you drinking to get maudlin or are you drinking to get numb? He didn't care that that couplet kept him awake at nights, but he cared that, once it was in place, he had an extraordinary song to open an extraordinary record."

The Lightning Seeds - the nearly man, 1990

"a reality where dreams are both tempting and frustrating"

Moby - lift me up, 2005

"the song is about the dangerous and disturbing global rise of intolerance and fundamentalism"

Club 8 - cold hearts, 2003

"Karolina Komstedt's air-brushed voice becomes a small chorus of angels"

The House Of Love - hannah, 1990

"During the slow and argumentative recording process, The House of Love's rhythm section Chris Groothuizen and Pete Evans would moonlight as members of a separate band, My White Bedroom.[citation needed] More seriously affected was lead guitarist Terry Bickers, an introverted character who was already unhappy with the implications of the band's deal with Fontana. Bickers would retreat into manic depression as his relationship with Chadwick deteriorated into a non-speaking one in which the two were more likely to communicate by post rather than have a face-to-face conversation. Following the completion of the album, Bickers would acrimoniously quit The House of Love during the early days of the sixty-date promotional tour. A couple of years later he would comment "I just found at the time that I didn't have the same aspirations as the rest of the band. I was more into exploring music than exploring the exploitation of markets around the globe. They were really into crusading. And winning. I wasn't."

The Radio Dept - you stopped making sense, 2010

“You forgot all about us” I think he means both their relationship and the human nature at the same time. It makes so much sense. I love this song"

Kaoma - lambada, 1989

"Lambada", also known as "Chorando Se Foi (Lambada)", or "Llorando Se Fue (Lambada)" (both meaning "crying, he/she went away" in Portuguese and Spanish, respectively), is a song by French-Brazilian pop group Kaoma. It features guest vocals by Brazilian vocalist Loalwa Braz and was released as the first single from Kaoma's 1989 debut album, Worldbeat."

The Go-Betweens - poison in the walls, 2003

"Where Rachel Worth sounded like an experiment gone right, Bright Yellow exudes confidence. It doesn’t hurt that the songs are uniformly solid. On “Caroline and I,” Forster muses about being “born in the very same year” as Monaco’s Princess Caroline, with typically witty, intriguing results: “It gave me something small that I could feel.” McLennan provides two further highlights in the wistful “Poison in the Walls” and the inspiring “Old Mexico,” which takes a jaunty verse and pours it into a beautiful chorus in which McLennan encourages the subject to “turn the lights off…you’ll be blinded.” Bright Yellow features some of the barbed guitar lines that punctuated the Go-Betweens’ first few albums, while an occasional organ adds color to the clean, uncluttered production. More than conclusive proof that McLennan’s and Forster’s reunion was a good idea, the album is a career high-point for both men."

Etienne Daho - la mémoire vive, 2000

"Etienne Daho follows the steps of his favorite artist in picturesque central Soho. And how not embrace minds and make up stories in the adored Bacon’s bar, the French House? I am not sure about what is really French in this bar, except for the Sans Culotte signs."

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - too late, 1996

"I'd abandoned techno/house; it was like an old man dying his hair jet-black: ridiculous. I decided to follow the current trend of getting more acoustic, using real drums and bass."