The Whole Nine Yards Episode 244     

With Roy Stannard

On Mid Sussex Radio 103.8FM

Sunday 28th September 2025 3-5pm

www.midsussexradio.co.uk/listen

Mute (songs without singers)

Instrumentals have been a staple of pop music as long as it has existed, and songs without vocals have been hits where words fall away and the music speaks without words. This is your passage into the instrumental undercurrent: a twilight zone of B-sides, lost themes, and sonic sketches that never asked for a spotlight but deserve one.

So lean in. Let go. And listen closely. Mute isn’t quiet – it’s what happens when the vocals step aside and the music finally gets to finish its sentence. Mute is where the vocals vanish and the instrumentals take centre stage. No lyrics. No distractions. A soundtrack for the parts of your life that are too bad, or too good for words..

Hour One

The Wedding Present – Dan Dare (Seamonsters / B Side Lovenest 1991)

Pale Saints – Porpoise (Flesh Balloon EP 1991)

New Order – Elegia (Low-Life 1985)

R.E.M. – White Tornado (Dead Letter Office 1983)

Silicon Teens – Red River Rock (Music for Parties 1980)

Broken Social Scene – Pacific Theme (You Forgot It In People 2002)

The Cure – Another Journey by Train (Seventeen Seconds 1980 / B Side A Forest)

The Cleaners from Venus – This Rainy Decade (Midnight Cleaners 1982)

Pavement – 5-4 = Unity (Crooked Rain Crooked Rain 1994)

Saint Etienne – Railway Jam (So Tough 1993)

Belle & Sebastian – Judy is a Dick Slap (Legal Man EP 2000)

Nick Heyward – Whistle Down the Wind (North of a Miracle, 2019 Remaster)

April Showers – Abandon Ship (Abandon Ship 12” 1984)

Hour Two

The Clean – Fish (Great Sounds Great EP 1982)

Catchers – La Luna (We Speak in Flames 2019)

Sally Dige – It’s You I’m Thinking Of (It’s You I’m Thinking Of 2021)

The Smiths – Oscillate Wildly (Louder than Bombs 1984)

Simple Minds – Theme for Great Cities (Sister Feelings Call 1981)

Kristian Bush – Forever Now (Say Yes) (Say Yes to the Dress 2016)

Penguin Café Orchestra – Perpetuum Mobile (Signs of Life 1987)

Portishead – Theme From To Kill A Dead Man (Glory Times / B Side Sour Times 1994)

The Herbaliser – The Missing Suitcase (Very Mercenary 1999)

The Monochrome set – The Etc Stroll (Strange Boutique 1980)

Alberto Barcelata Orchestra – El Bimbo (Passionate Latin Music 2016)

Professor Green – Little Secrets (Little Secrets ft Mr Probz 2014)

Walking on Cars – Catch Me if You Can (Catch Me if You Can)

The Smiths – The Boy with a Thorn in his Side (The Queen is Dead 1986)