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letter analogy
The most obvious analogy to the concept of song construction must be a letter in an envelope. The envelope represents the tune, which carries the letter, and the letter represents the words and is comprised of one or more sheets of note paper containing a message of some sort.

But I sense the teams are missing the point here, as there is another vital element - the stamp. A postage stamp to the correct value must be attached, that is if you define value as paying 28p for a 1 in 4 chance of having your mail lost. The postage stamp represents that third essential component, a musical instrument and must be stuck in exactly the correct position. Fortunately, we have with us someone who knows exactly where he can stick it. At the piano, Colin Sell.

light bulb analogy
Each member of a team is presented with a song from which the words have been omitted and replaced with the lyrics of a second song from which the tune has been discarded. Still not clear? Try to imagine you have two electric lamps but in one of the lamps the light bulb has failed. You could swap it over for the good one. It doesn’t matter why one of them has failed, although it is almost certainly because you bought them cheaply from some dodgy market trader - their light bulbs are certainly good value but they do have a habit of going out if handled badly - they are not built to withstand rough treatment such as putting electricity through them. To be fair they probably work well enough where they come from, some sweatshop in Uzbekistan no doubt, where if the mains supply goes above 7 Volts they classify it as a power surge. Finally, in those places even a dead light bulb is considered something of a luxury compared with what they normally have. I know what you are thinking - what could possibly be more dim than a dead light bulb? At the piano we have Colin Sell.

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