Past Tunes — Timeless Music, Unforgettable Stories
Rediscover the voices, songs and stories that shaped the 1970s & 1980s.
Memory Lane Music 
CC0 1.0, Eric Nopanen. Listening first Put this record on before you read further, if you can. If My Girl is the Temptations at their sunniest, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, released in 1966, is the group with its sleeves rolled up. It opens with a sharp, insistent rhythm and a vocal that sounds less … Read more
CC0 1.0, Jenkuh. Listening first Put this record on before you read further, if you can. There are few openings in popular music as instantly recognisable as the one that begins My Girl: a bass line that walks up and down like someone smiling, a guitar answering it, and then a voice, warm and unhurried, … Read more
CC0 1.0, Photo: Anthony DELANOIX, via Wikimedia Commons. Listening first Put this record on before you read further, if you can. The best way into any Past Tunes story is through the sound itself, and this song rewards that approach more than most. It begins not with a band crashing in, but with voices: the … Read more
CC0 1.0 via Wikimedia Commons, thematic New York skyline, not an archival photo of the artist. Some singles sound like they are trying to convince you of something. “Dreaming” does not need to convince anyone. From its first bars, Blondie sound as if they are already moving, already in motion, and the listener simply has … Read more
Pexels, free licence Released in 1983, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is the album that made Eurythmics, and it still sounds like a breakthrough: a record made largely in a home studio, with synthesisers, drum machines and a determination to turn limited resources into a new kind of pop. Around the title song and … Read more
Pexels, free licence “When Tomorrow Comes”, from Revenge, is a brighter, more optimistic Eurythmics song, about looking forward after a difficult period. Its melody is open and hopeful, its production is clean and spacious, and Lennox sings it with a warmth that balances the album’s harder tracks. As a single, it was more successful in … Read more
Pexels, free licence “Missionary Man”, also from Revenge, is one of Eurythmics’ most aggressive singles, with a hard guitar riff, a pounding beat and a vocal that sounds both attracted and suspicious. Lennox has spoken about the song’s personal roots, but its lyric also works as a broader warning about people, in religion, politics or … Read more
Pexels, free licence From Be Yourself Tonight (1985), “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)” is Eurythmics at their most joyful, with a harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder and a chorus that lifts like a celebration. The song’s gospel-tinged warmth was a new direction for the duo, showing that their electronic sound could … Read more
Pexels, free licence “Love Is a Stranger”, also from Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), is a song about the strangeness of desire: love as something that arrives uninvited, changes the room and leaves before you understand it. Its synth line is restless, its vocal is intimate and a little wary, and its success, after … Read more
Pexels, free licence Released in 1980, Duke is the album where Genesis’s transition from progressive rock to pop feels complete and confident. Its songs, including “Turn It On Again”, “Misunderstanding” and “Duchess”, move between short, catchy tracks and longer, linked pieces, and the album’s sequencing gives it a sense of a story without forcing a … Read more