cover image Songs in the Rough: From ""Heartbreak Hotel"" to ""Rhythm Nation"": Rock's Greatest Songs in First-Draft Form

Songs in the Rough: From ""Heartbreak Hotel"" to ""Rhythm Nation"": Rock's Greatest Songs in First-Draft Form

Stephen Bishop. St. Martin's Press, $27.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-312-14048-9

Described by its author, Jeffrey McQuain, as a ""word workout,"" Power Language: Getting the Most Out of Your Words will jump-start your vocabulary, if you follow his advice on how to ""Stress for Success"" (""Repetition offers dramatic power""), accentuate the positive (""Perhaps no other advice in writing and speaking is more important"") and avoid ""weasel"" words such as almost, basically and nearly. McQuain's boss at the New York Times, William Safire, provides the foreword. (Houghton Mifflin, $15.95 224p ISBN 0-395-71255-6) Newly discovered lyrics by Buddy Holly (""`Yes' means we'll go on together/ `No' means that we'll have to part"") highlight Stephen Bishop's Songs in the Rough, which presents 80 top rock and folk songs in their original draft form, as well as interviews with the composers or their surviving relations. Bishop, himself a songwriter who contributes two entries, has tracked down scribbles--reproduced here--that will send shivers down song-lovers' spines: among them, drafts of ""Blowin' in the Wind,"" ""Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"" and ""Heartbreak Hotel."" Illustrations. (St. Martin's, $27.95 160p ISBN 0-312-14048-7)