This week’s topic is, “Top 5 books about music. February seems to have a ‘national ukulele day’ so what are your top 5 books about music, musicians, or instruments.” I had a very hard time cutting this down to five when I was thinking about novels, so I decided to do a Non-Fiction list as well. This was a bit trickier, actually. Maybe if I tried harder, I could’ve come up with a better list, but I didn’t have that kind of time. But once I had the idea for this list I had to finish.
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 A Dream About Lightning Bugs by Ben Folds Sure, the big appeal of this book is to learn more about the career of Folds and the Ben Folds Five, and there’s some good material on the ups and downs of Folds’ personal life. What he says about music and the creation of it–both his and others’, that gets it on this list. Also, I’m a pretty big fan of the author, that doesn’t hurt. |
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 Soundtrack of Silence by Matt Hay It’s dangerous to put this here because I’ve barely scratched the surface of the book as I compose this. But something about the premise and the early execution, the nice way that he’s working in references and lyrics to music makes me think it’ll be worth calling one of my Top 5. |
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 Dear Mr Pop Star by Derek & Dave Philpott It’s kind of a stretch to include this one, but this book brought me so much joy that I don’t care. I’ll vigorously apply a shoehorn to get it to fit. It’s not about music or musicians, per se. It’s a collection of “deliberately deranged letters to pop stars from the 1960s to the 90s to take issue with the lyrics of some of their best-known songs.” For example, they write to Starship about “We Built this City” going into a great amount of detail about the nature of foundations, different types of them, etc. and how this makes their “design project” the “most ludicrous” in the history of architecture. But what separates this book from similar tomes, what makes it special is that on the very next page, you get to read a response from Martin Page, who co-wrote the song. Page mounts an impassioned defense of the song — full of references to Rock classics as proof. Each letter printed in this collection is answered by a songwriter, musician, or other representative of a musical act. Some of these responses debate the premise of the Philpott’s letter, some answer in the same vein, others take the premise and run with it in their own way — some appear to be in on the joke, others appears to be flummoxed that anyone would take their lyrics in this insane manner. |
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 Sundry Notes of Music by Ian Shane We all know how a song can tie you to a moment in your personal history. Just hearing it can take you back to a moment, to a feeling, etc. There’s also how the lyrics of a song can hit you just right and inform a period of time in your life. We all know it, but few of go where Shane did and write a memoir (of sorts) tracing significant songs. |
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 Love is a Mix-Tape by Rob Sheffield A stray thought about this book led to this list. This is simply a fantastic book, a chronicle of Sheffield’s time with his wife, Renée, from their meeting to her untimely death at the age of 31. He frames his account in discussions of mix tapes he or she made for various times/events in their lives. The songs, and the feelings they evoke, are just as much part of their story as anything else. There’s a lot of humor, a lot of heart–and then some heartbreak and the aftermath. I really should make some time to re-read this. |
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