It’s not uncommon to recall where we were when we first heard a favorite song, or for our understanding of its meaning to change over time. This season several books delve into the stories behind the lyrics; others collect interviews with songwriters that describe their process.
In his typical provocative style, music critic Greil Marcus relates The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll in Ten Songs (Yale, Sept.). Selecting 10 songs recorded between 1956 and 2008, Marcus assesses various performances of the same song—comparing, for example, the original 1960 Etta James version of “All I Could Do Was Cry” with Amy Winehouse’s 2008 cover—and explores how each recording reflects its era. According to Yale editor-at-large Steve Wasserman, “Marcus is interested in songs that capture the unruly nature of rock and roll, and he wants to show the ways these songs escape the gravitational field of their time and then gather meaning.”
The mechanics of songwriting can be as mysterious as the meanings behind the lyrics; two new books of interviews with songwriters aim to demystify the process. Inspired by Paul Zollo’s Songwriters on Songwriting, which focuses on North American troubadours, Daniel Rachel’s The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters (St. Martin’s, Oct.) collects discussions from 23 British songwriters, among them Ray Davies, Annie Lennox, Mick Jones, Joan Armatrading, and Sting. In Nashville Songwriter: The Inside Stories Behind Country Music’s Greatest Hits (BenBella, Sept.), Jake Brown interviews contemporary writers, including Freddy Powers, Bill Anderson, and Tom T. Hall.
The elusive Van Morrison has long been very private about his songwriting. In Lit Up Inside: Selected Lyrics (City Light, Oct.), which culls some 100 songs from his 34-album discography, he writes, “The lyrics in this book span 50 years of writing and as such are representative of my creative journey.”
Bob Dylan is known as much for his enigmatic lyrics as for his distinctive voice. The Complete Annotated Lyrics (S&S, Oct.), annotated by poet Christopher Ricks, offers the first comprehensive collection of the songwriter’s output.
As John Parsley, executive editor Little, Brown, says, “It’s no secret that fans love to read about their favorite musicians. But the books that really find a readership and always will are the ones that go deep.” In The Beatles Lyrics: The Stories Behind the Music, Including the Handwritten Drafts of More than 100 Classic Beatles Songs (Little, Brown, Sept.), Beatles expert Hunter Davies demonstrates that the Fab Four wrote their songs just about anywhere—many began as a scribble on the back of an envelope, on a napkin, or on hotel stationery. The collection reproduces more than one original manuscript, granting the reader an all-access look behind the music.
