Humans are readily gripped by the power of tiny objects. Currently, the focus point is undoubtedly the smartphone – a constant companion and a vortex for some kind of inspiration, encouragement, and perhaps a sense of self. What magic lies in this small box, just as the television, the wireless radio and the gramophone before it? But for far longer gemstones have held this fascination in our hands. Like the smartphone, we can glimpse in them, through a magical refraction of angled light and colour, another world in which our minds might disappear. And this absorption is almost more powerful when coveted, in the imagination, than when finally in our grasp. So precious gemstones in song are as much about the feelings they inspire as the objects themselves. They are a dream of perfection in our imperfect lives, but even so, as Confucius put it: “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

Artists of all types have been obsessed with diamonds, from Liberace to Damien Hirst. They are the leading light of precious stones, not only beautiful, but rare. Forged at high temperatures with covalent bonding – the electrons shared between atoms – their carbon chemical structure makes them extraordinarily stable, strong and hard. Like their appeal, they physically endure, and hopefully like this week’s songs, timeless. So any reference to the pertaining to the actual gemstone, or in a metaphor – a rough diamond, diamond-shaped – are also relevant.

But the beautiful can also be the most deadly, the destroyer of lives, the seed of obsession, the focus of crimes and wars. They are symbols of triumph and suffering. West, central and South African mines have been the apex of blood diamonds, child exploitation and violence. But there is no shortage of hardship in the mines of Russia, India, Australia and North America. And diamond thefts are always big news. In February 2013 armed robbers carried out a heist at Brussels airport and escaped with gems estimated to be worth $50m (£32m), the latest in many such incidents, including an even bigger robbery in Cannes.

In this twinkling constellation, pearls also gleam out at us as something to dive for or string on a necklace, but the world is your oyster too with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires among the precious stones, with the same rules applying on wordplay, but consider also the amethyst, jade, aquamarine, malachite, blue topaz, topal quartz and any others classed as precious or semi-precious. From elegant artistry to kings of bling, jewellery is likely to shine out this week, but please don’t include gold, a subject done before, and we will have other precious metals such as silver appearing in a future topic.

So then, fellow musical miners, please dig deep and nominate your precious gemstone song offerings in comments below by last orders (11pm BST) on Monday 18 August up to to this week’s sparkling judge, treefrogdemon, who, holding a bejewelled sceptre and wearing the guru’s crown, will benignly pick out a treasure trove of the rarest and finest, revealed on Thursday 21 August.

To increase the likelihood of your nomination being considered, please:

• Tell us why it’s a worthy contender.
• Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words.
• Provide a link to the song. We prefer Muzu or YouTube, but Spotify, SoundCloud or Grooveshark are fine.
• Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
• If you have a good theme for Readers recommend, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist, please email peter.kimpton@theguardian.com
• There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the 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.