I mention this point because it illuminates how Nick Hornby listens to music – he’s a “music first” listener. One point he makes about her songwriting, a point that applies to all songwriting, bears mention: “…music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters, even great ones…find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down.” (italics mine) That’s a potent statement – and especially so since it comes right after Hornby’s confession that if he could write songs he’d never have written books. Hornby waxes eloquent about Aimee Mann‘s work (who was having quite a vogue about the time he wrote Songbook).
That last clause sums up my feelings about the people who belittle my dislike of Pink Floyd pretty well. Good luck to you if you have, because it means that you have managed to avoid more or less everything that life has to throw at you, but don’t try to make me feel morally or intellectually inferior. ‘All these years later and Suicide still feels like a shot in the head,’ an enthusiastic reviewer remarked when their first album was re-released…however, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t want to be shot in the head, and so I will avoid any work of art that seeks to re-create that particular experience for me…some of us, as we get older, simply find that we don’t have that much courage to spare anymore. In the case of his inclusion of “Frankie Teardrop” by Suicide, he uses his discussion of the song (a depressing industrial music tale of lost hope and murder/suicide) to explain why he has decided never to listen to the song again as a taking off point for explaining how his musical tastes have changed as he’s grown older: I understand the “ear worm” phenomenon perfectly well, but there are (or should be) limits…. His argument that the album is worth it for the one track feels a little strained, especially when he offers the argument that “I’m Like a Bird” will become no more tiresome than, say, “The Moonlight Sonata.” I get the point he’s trying to make, that pop music is an art form and that any art form may become tired – but maybe the above comparison tends too much toward metaphor, for me at least, given that the only thing I can find comparable between those two works is that both are music. His defenses are always thoughtful and sometimes clever – for example, he makes no bones about the fact that the album from which the Nelly Furtado song he writes about, “I’m Like a Bird,” is otherwise uninspired – and uninspiring. The first is that Hornby’s generous view of music leads him to defend – well, sometimes, the indefensible. There are two important points I’d make about this book. Nick Hornby’s Songbook is a compilation of essays on a really wide variety of pop songs (and something I love about this book is that Hornby casts the widest possible net in his use of the term “pop” it’s a net that captures artists ranging from Led Zeppelin to Nelly Furtado, from Suicide to Richard and Linda Thompson, from Röyskopp to Patti Smith.
It’s a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while now since finally reading this writer’s work for the first time last year (I actually have more of his stuff on the shelf, but I was holding off for – I don’t know, the 2015 reading list?). To remedy that situation, after our first appointment we stopped by our favorite used book store. Songbook by Nick Hornby (image courtesy Goodreads) You can guess what happened: leaving at that early hour, I had travel mug of coffee in hand but the other hand, alas, held no book. My usual habit is to take along a book or two so that while waiting for appointments I can read and further feed my addiction to beauty and truth. We had to be there early, and since it’s a two hour drive, that means we had to leave our home in the lovely NC mountains very early.
#Nick hornby songbook professional#
Lea and I had to be in the city (well, our nearest city) for some appointments, both medical and professional a couple of days ago. Vow, dedication, resolution – in pace requiscat, as Mr. I have already fallen short of the glory. This was my solemn vow, my stern dedication, my forthright resolution. I had promised myself I wouldn’t buy any more books until I’d gotten through those on the 2014 reading list (and the updated 2014 reading list) and the soon to be further updated 2014 reading list read. We all love music Nick Hornby shows us that some of us can talk about our love for it more lucidly than others…
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