Guest Playlist: Svetoslav Todorov (Indioteque) - 10 favorite song lyrics

   We are starting new series of guest-playlists, in which we will invite musicians, journalists, writers and artists to share with us their favorite music. Our first guest is Svetoslav Todorov - 1/3 of the music collective 'Indioteque', who are responsible for many concerts in Sofia's music life; also a writer and journalist. Here are his 10 favorite song lyrics and some notes about them - we recommend reading while listening to the moving playlist, titled 'Revealing myself in layers exposing a core to the inner eye'.

    ST: 'So when 'Against The Odds' asked me to do a lyric-driven playlist it was obvious from the start that 1) this is a great idea 2) it's a hell of a hard one. I've always been into songlyrics – partly as a trigger to learn English better back in the day, partly because...c'mon, listening to just the music is like hanging out with somebody just because the person looks pretty. I eventually selected songs with some sort of narrative and history background behind them and while there isn't a theme between them, there is certain play around the topics of guilt, fear and feeling of displacement.

It's not an all-time favorite list of songs but it actually starts with what is perhaps my all-time favorite song: David Bowie's Thursday Child, the first single off his '...Hours' album (1999) one of the few where he's not playing anyone but himself. Often his lyrics are like riddles, sometimes beautifully meaningless, and this is so not the case here. I remember the feeling of being 10 and seeing the video on some of the music channels and then just clicking through them all day long to catch again. There is a certain romance of being part of  the last generation which remembers the pre-YouTube excitement of seeing your favorite song on the tv screen.

I chose Lou Reed's Sword of Democles as a second track as it stands on some sort of intertextual level with Bowie's death (They're trying a new treatment to get you out of bed / But radiation kills both bad and good / It can not differentiate / So to cure you they must kill you / The sword of Damocles hangs above your head). It's from 'Magic and Loss' (1992), an album I got familiar with fairly recently.

If I remember correctly from a Pet Shop Boys documentary I watched a while ago Neil Tennant wrote It Couldn't Happen Here as a reaction to a conversation he had with a friend about the AIDS crisis in the 80's and how the disease woudn't develop in England like it had in America. Just because “it couldn't happen here”. I think that we're often caught in this “it coudn't happen here” sentiment. We can definitely relate to that in light of all the awful political events that happened this year 

What I always found fascinating about Pet Shop Boys is how they're treated as a light-hearted group yet the “dark ones” of their generation have never or rarely delved that deeper into serious subjects like AIDS, death of close friends, governmental surveillance, UK vs. USA politics, LGTB deaths in the far East, quorter-life crisises, mid-life crisises, body shaming, the sombre sides of fame, class conflicts, finding about the infidelity of your loved one and feeling “awkward as an elephant”, and is Morrissey really that sad (I'll spare you the Google search, that song is called Miserablism). Even on they're most recent offering, 'Super', they're for example writing about the expectations you have about yourself and on yourself when you're “twenty-something”.

On 'Adore' Savages ask a very simple yet reflective question: can we actually feel happy when they're bad news and feeling of discontent all around and often in us? (“Is it human to ask for more? Is it human to adore life?”). It's one of this year's best singles (and videos) and of course, the whole album is worth checking out. There is not a single filler on it and Savages seem to get better at escaping the 80's sound and finding they're own identity. Girl power forever.

So Daughter's 'Doing the Right Thing' starts with “And they're making children And they're making love / With their old excuses / We are built for reproduction / But I find it soothing / When I am confined / I'm just fearing one day soon / I'll lose my mind” and I'm gonna leave it at that! Recently catched them live in Thessaloniki and it was breathtaking.

Next one is 'Overture' by Patrick Wolf in an acoustic version from his 'Sunlight and Riverlight' compilation. By this point Patrick Wolf has not released a studio album in five years, but to be honest I'm ready to wait as long as it's needed. He has released five absolutely perfect albums which I know I'll listen even after God knows how many years. His music is a lifelong friend. The album version of the song is from 2007's 'The Magic Position' which caught me as a depressed teenager and of course lyrics such as 'To look back at that boy on his way to school / Such a heavy heart, such a heavy jewel hiding / Something that one day he'll sell / But now if no one shows, no one tells a thing, no / So come on love, open wide, open up now / Don't you think it's time' resonated.

In my opinion Manic Street Preachers are the band with the most thoughtful and deep lyrics. I think it was Nicky Wire who said that they've probably influnced more writers than musicians. They're always staying farway from the cliché, always immensely poetic, direct and provokative. This one is from 2013's Rewind The Film, a slow-burning balladry album, where almost every song can stand as a poetry piece. MSP are one of the few bands whose lyrics don't really need the music to get across their message. And I love how sometimes they combine the everyday-ish with the apocalyptical (The dying fall of my sentences / The magic of lost consequences / The seduction of a fading power / In a hotel room in the middle of nowhere).

Elliott Smith's 'True Love' was released officialy recently as part of the soundtrack to the 'Heaven Adores You' documentary. But the mp3 has been floating around since his death and has always been a favorite of mine. It's dark as dark can gets, poetic as a song lyric can be and it's like a springbolt to Elliott's thoughts and h-u-g-e-l-y problematic state. I think his final recordings were one of his best and I often wonder how would he navigate his career if he had not died: would he always be the sad guy with the guitar or he would take the Mark Lanegan route – the sober experimenting guy. I like to think that Elliott would break his own formula just because by the end he was getting to perfect at it.

And there's Leonard Cohen's classic 'Hallelujah' which needs no introduction. Once in Berlin I bought a book with his poetry and lyrics and I think this is the closest thing to a Bible I own. So hallelujah for Leonard indeed!

Suede are one of my top five favourite bands and I find Brett Anderson's solo albums hugely underrated. I initially thought of including something from them but then I decided on this obscure b-side called 'Digging a Hole' – it's actually written and sung by their keyboardist Neil Codling. It feels like a home recording which gives it an intimate vibe – like a grainy black and white picture. The lyrics sound like someone's sobering 6am thoughts after a wild night out that ended with a kiss for goodbye. That might as well been the case in 1996.  There is just one more Neil song in their catalogue and he has never made a proper solo project so it's a shame that he isn't stepping behind the mic more often.

The final one is the haunting 'Hey, Lucinda' from Tindersticks' new album. It's a duet with Lhasa de Sela and demoed little before her death from cancer in 2010. According to the band they needed a couple of years to be able to revisit the song. It's quite an interesting one as the vocals are guided by the narrative. Cinematic is a often used word when it comes to Tindersticks and that song fits the tag perfectly.' 

Svetoslav Todorov is on @twitter and @instagram