Music & Musicians
The Stranger Side of Music
Unusual lives, extraordinary instruments and the stories behind the sound
Behind the songs we know and the instruments we recognise lies a world of unexpected lives, curious inventions and extraordinary events. Music has accompanied rituals, challenged authority, crossed borders and left some very strange stories behind.
Explore overlooked musicians, remarkable performances, unusual instruments and the hidden histories of familiar sounds. Each investigation follows the surviving evidence—from letters and concert programmes to museum objects and early recordings—and separates documented history from the myths that gathered around it.
Welcome to The Stranger Side of Music.
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Musical investigations
The Stranger Side of MusicWas “Space Oddity” Really Written About the Moon Landing?
Released just before Apollo 11, “Space Oddity” became inseparable from the Moon landing. Its earlier recording and Bowie’s own accounts point to a cinema as the starting point.
The Stranger Side of MusicHow Did a Victorian Circus Poster Become a Beatles Song?
An 1843 playbill supplied the Beatles with performers, a horse and a world of spectacle. The poster behind “Mr. Kite” reveals what was borrowed—and what changed.
The Stranger Side of MusicHow Was the Doctor Who Theme Built from Tape and a Plucked String?
The sound of the future was built by hand. How Delia Derbyshire transformed magnetic tape, electronic tones and a plucked string into Doctor Who’s musical identity.
The Stranger Side of MusicWhy Did Radio Stations Ban a Record Without Any Words?
There were no lyrics to object to. Yet Link Wray’s “Rumble” became a record some broadcasters refused to play. What made a guitar sound dangerous?
The Stranger Side of MusicWho Was the Woman Making Pianos in Beethoven’s Vienna?
Nannette Streicher was more than Beethoven’s helpful friend. Her instruments and workshop records reveal a leading piano maker with a story of her own.
The Stranger Side of MusicWhy Did a Sultan Own a Musical Tiger That Mauled a Soldier?
A keyboard hidden in a wooden tiger, a moving soldier and a journey from a Mysore palace to London: the extraordinary history of Tipu’s Tiger.