I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: songs from Songbook (2002).

Songbook came with an 11 song CD.  I’m curious, given the way he speaks so lovingly of the songs in the book how come more bands/labels didn’t want to be included on it.  The proceeds went to charity and it would just be more exposure for the artists.  There were a lot of songs I didn’t know and would love to have heard (or would love to hear while I was reading).  And frankly I see no downside to throwing a track on a compilation which is a collection of someone’s favorite songs.  Of course, things were very different in the music world in 2002.  Now, someone will just make a playlist on their iPod of theses songs, and post them to Spotify.

PAUL WESTERBERG-“Born for Me.” I’m much more of a fan of Westerberg with the Replacements, as he got a little too polished as a solo guy.  But this song has a fun, shambolic quality to it (it doesn’t even sound like Westerberg singing).  It wouldn’t be a favorite song of mine, but it is a nice one.

TEENAGE FANCLUB “Your Love is the Place Where I Come From” and “Ain’t That Enough.”  I really like Teenage Fanclub a lot.  They are one of my favorite jangly pop bands.  So these two songs rank pretty high for me.  Although I admit to liking their slightly more rocking songs a bit more, “Your Love” is a very pretty ballad and “Ain’t That Enough” is just gorgeous.

THE BIBLE- “Glorybound” Hornby says he knew these guys.  It’s an okay song, a little too slick for me and very of its time.

AIMEE MANN-“I’ve Had It”  I like Aimee Mann very much.  I can’t say that I paid a ton of attention to the lyrics of this song (I didn’t know it was about touring) but I’ve always liked it—the understated yet beautiful melody and chorus are very nice.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT-“One Man Guy” I like Rufus a lot.  I don’t own any of his music, but I really like everything I hear from him.  His delivery is so louche, it makes me smile every time.  This song is actually one his father wrote and sang many years ago (very differently).

ROD STEWART-“Mama You Been on My Mind” Hornby’s essay on Rod Stewart is hilarious.  And his defense of early Stewart is wholly believable.  I, of course, know Rod from his later, laughable stuff, so I never considered his early work  But this track is pretty good.

BADLY DRAWN BOY-“A Minor Incident” Sarah and I love Badly Drawn Boy, and this soundtrack in particular.  Hornby’s discussion of how he Damon got to do the soundtrack is very interesting.

BEN FOLDS FIVE-“Smoke” I’ve liked Ben for years now (going to see him in two weeks).  This song has always been a favorite both for the lyrics, which are great and because that weird harp-type sound is him playing the strings of his grand piano with a pick.

MARK MULCAHY-“Hey Self Defeater” I don’t know Mulcahy at all.  This song has a beautiful wavery guitar and gentle vocals (it’s funny to read about Hornby rocking out when most of this disc is quite mellow).

ANI DIFRANCO-“You Had Time” I was a huge Ani DiFranco fan back in the day, but this song is unknown to me, or should I say unfamiliar to me.  It’s on one of her very early albums.  Perhaps it’s more that I must have ignored the piano opening, which Hornby pays close attention to and really explains it in a useful way, showing how it is more about a beautiful melody being born from chaos.  And now I respect the song a lot more.

[READ: 2002 and July 1, 2013] Songbook

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written this very book in my head….  A list of favorite songs and why they are so important to me?  How cool is that.  I have no idea how come Hornby got to write it (I know, High Fidelity), but still, what a nice cozy assignment.  And to have this book illustrated by Marcel Dzama is even cooler.

This book came out in 2002 after About a Boy (and in the year that About a Boy was being turned into a film).  Hornby had recently hooked up with the McSweeney’s gang and began writing for The Believer in 2003.

I had no idea that the book was released in the UK under a different name (31 Songs) or that they also released an accompanying CD (A Selection of Music from 31 Songs) with 18 songs on it (see my comment above about CDs).  Although we got fewer songs on the disc in the US, at least ours came with the book.

This is not really a book about his favorite songs exactly.  It’s more about songs that are important to him for one reason or another.  He initially thought that all of the songs would have significant time and place connections, as Teenage Fanclub’s “Your Love is the Place That I come From” does, but some are just songs he has loved forever (like “Thunder Road”) or songs that he just discovered (like Soulwax). Or perhaps a song that is recent and which he may be embarrassed by soon enough (Nelly Furtado).  Or a song that only became significant to him after seeing it performed live (“Pissing in a River”).

Maybe it’s even a song that he doesn’t really like all that much (Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop which he never intends to listen to again).  Or a song that meant something once but means something else entirely now (“Samba Pa Ti”).

Hornby’s writing style is causal and fun.  He is smart and clever, self-deprecating and generally an enjoyable guy to read.  This may not be a “real” book by many standards but it’ a great book to read and to see how a music lover really appreciates music.

What’s interesting that at the end he includes a list of his favorite songs of 2002, but he doesn’t talk about any of them.

The songs he talks about are:

1. Teenage Fanclub – “Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From”
2. Bruce Springsteen – “Thunder Road”
3. Nelly Furtado – “I’m Like a Bird”
4. Led Zeppelin – “Heartbreaker”
5. Rufus Wainwright – “One Man Guy”
6. Santana – “Samba Pa Ti”
7. Rod Stewart – “Mama, You Been on My Mind”
8. Bob Dylan – “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”
9. The Beatles – “Rain”
10. Ani DiFranco – “You Had Time”
11. Aimee Mann – “I’ve Had It”
12. Paul Westerberg – “Born for Me”
13. Suicide – “Frankie Teardrop”
14. Teenage Fanclub – “Ain’t That Enough”
15. The J. Geils Band – “First I Look at the Purse”
16. Ben Folds Five – “Smoke”
17. Badly Drawn Boy – “A Minor Incident”
18. The Bible – “Glorybound”
19. Van Morrison – “Caravan”
20. Butch Hancock and Marce LaCouture – “So I’ll Run”
21. Gregory Isaacs – “Puff, the Magic Dragon”
22. Ian Dury and the Blockheads – “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3”
23. Richard and Linda Thompson – “Calvary Cross”
24. Jackson Browne – “Late for the Sky”
25. Mark Mulcahy – “Hey Self-Defeater”
26. The Velvelettes – “Needle in a Haystack”
27. O.V. Wright – “Let’s Straighten It Out”
28. Röyksopp – “Röyksopp’s Night Out”
29. The Avalanches – “Frontier Psychiatrist”
30. Soulwax – “No Fun” /”Push It”
31. Patti Smith Group – “Pissing in a River”

I’d love for him to make a ten years later update to see if he still likes/listens to these songs and what he’s listening to now.  (I smell a blog post Mr Hornby).

Even ten years later, this book is really enjoyable and fun to read.