Here is this week’s playlist – songs picked by a reader from hundreds of stories and suggestions on last week’s callout. Thanks for taking part. Read more about how our weekly series works at the end of the piece.

Before we embark on this wide-ranging musical journey I’m obliged to mention a shameless subliminal nomination by unknown Guardian staff. Don’t think I didn’t notice the link embedded below the photograph when the topic was launched last week. The tactic failed to point me in the intended direction, however, because the crafty suggestion of Hit the North by the Fall was already zedded in a playlist of songs about northern England in 2007.

Our first choice, then, is Compass by Zella Day. A memorable modern ballad which would probably have made the cut on the strength of its title alone. Inclusion of the lyric “compass points you home” clinched it.

There were various songs referencing the Southern Cross constellation put forward, and the pick of those from reader Clare Munks included a point of order that “the term is also sometimes used as another name for the inverted cross …” Those of you of a certain musical bent will know already where this is heading: Black Sabbath and Sign of the Southern Cross.

Talking of “cross”, the chaps responsible for the next selection definitely sound a trifle annoyed. Who Gives a Fuck Where You From, exclaim Three 6 Mafia – pointedly and at length. As reader NoMoreMrNice explains, sometimes in this musical genre “cardinal directions are treated as a matter of life and death”. The particular issue there, apparently, is whether you’re “eastside fellaz” or “westside fellaz”. Personally I’d be more scared of the fella in Hamish Imlach’s Glasgow-based folk classic, Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice: “Well oot o’ the East, there came a hardman / Oh ho, all the way frae Brigton …”

The protagonist in the following pick is also on something of a journey:

Travelin’ through you, from your east to west
I find quaint invitations to stop and take a rest
In mountains and valleys, as I go travelin’ through
The east, west, north and south of you

Given that Benny Hill’s Ernie is zedded, I had to get the innuendo from somewhere, and Smokey Robinson’s Travelin’ Through certainly filled that hole.

We get another full house of cardinal points in the irresistible earworm (with genuine travelogue video) that is The Road by Frank Turner. Not to be outdone, in Sleipnir, Manowar regales us with an adventure involving eight points of the compass: if heavy metal teaches us anything, it’s that ordinal directions need recognition too … Having said that, the song also features an “eight-legged steed”, so maybe arithmetic simply isn’t their forte.

A difference of opinion between Steves in our next two selections. Seasick Steve, in a catchy, grizzled and bluesy style, advises that one should Never Go West. I’m Going to the West, replies Steve Tilston, in a more laid-back, folky fashion. Perhaps they should – like the sun in Californication by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – both simply choose to settle in a final location.

As SpotTheWhopper says in nominating MIA’s Borders, we hear the artist “using all compass points to signify a global thing, here railing against the restriction of human migration versus the open doors of business globalisation”.

The penultimate choice was one of several songs suggested where the word “south” was used more as a collective noun than a direction:

Some prayers never reach the sky
Some wounds never heal
They still say someday the South will rise
Man, I want to see that deal

Reader thoughtballoons said of Warren Zevon’s Renegade that it “doesn’t just mention the South. It encapsulates the South”.

To conclude, a rollicking number which identifies the sine qua non of all things compass-related: Alestorm’s Magnetic North. The fact that it’s performed in heavy-rock, Scottish-pirate fashion is simply a wonderful bonus!

Not all songs appear on the Spotify playlist, as some are unavailable on the service.

New theme: how to join in

The next theme will be announced at 8pm (GMT) on Thursday 8 March. You will have until 11pm on Monday 12 March to submit nominations.

Here is a reminder of some of the guidelines for Readers recommend:

• If you have a good idea for a theme, or you would like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com.
  
• There is a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the new look Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars.
  
• Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.