When this book was written in 2003, the essays discussed songs that the reader either knew or would go out and seek having read the authors appreciation . Reading this in 2020 with the ability to ask Alexa to play each song would have been unimaginable feat, but what a joy it is! I’ve never found an in road to Ben Folds music, but reading the authors love for the song Smoke and being able to repeat it, enabled me to get it. While the book is dated, there are many gems to be discovered and classics to be celebrated. Quick and fun read.

Bueno, no es una novela, ni un ensayo, ni una crítica musical (como se esfuerza en recordarnos el autor constantemente).... es una mirada sobre 31 canciones que de alguna manera u otra han calado en Hornby, bien sentimentalmente, bien por otros motivos más "musicales". No puedo evitarlo, Hornby me cae bien, me gusta como escribe, y es un fan de la música, como yo, aunque no tenga su nivel de conocimientos seguramente... pero el libro destila pasión y eso es lo que me atrapa, aunque no compartamos totalmente los gustos, hace que se contagie su entusiasmo por lo que escribe. Todo ello sazonado con un gran sentido del humor... y además escoge "Thunder Road" para abrir el libro.... que más se le puede pedir.

P.D. Creo también que "Thunder Road" forma parte de mi historia, al igual que "Born to Run" y otras muchas canciones (igual un dia hago una reco como él); Thunder es una canción que, como Hornby, no identifico con un momento de mi vida o una imagen en concreto, porque me lleva acompañando muy a menudo desde los 14 años, por lo que es como una banda sonora... y curiosamente no envejece, es vigente para mí, es "redonda" sencillamente, tanto en la amarga versión acústica como en la imponente versión más rockera. Ais......... ese Boss......

FEBRERO 2011 - RELECTURA

I love the obsessive pop fandom done with a British accent.

I find discussing music difficult - how do you articulate *why* you like some piece of music or a band, *why* it is good? And music is so important to me; it is the essence of happiness. Grandma used to make us mixed tapes (we'd send her a list of songs); I used to make mixed tapes for my closest friends. This is something we no longer do in this era of streaming music; this book is nostalgic in that way as it reads like the liner notes of a mixed tape.

Hornby discusses:
--The association of memories with songs (and the fact that people who say their favorite song is based on a memory in fact love the memory more than the song). Most of my memory-association song connections are songs that I still love that remind me of college - I still listen to this music (Coldplay, Beck, Elliot Smith). To Hornby's point, there are few (like Sheryl Crow's "A Change Will Do You Good") that remind me of changing diapers and Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" and Bette Midler's "From a Distance" that remind me of teenage basement dance parties - for these, the memory is more powerful than the song.
--How a song (or a book) can feel like an expression of self, this feeling of "this song is *so* me", or "this is what I feel on the inside". We play music we love and hope/wonder whether others like it, too, which becomes some strange judgement of our selves. "He has something in him that he wants others to articulate" - and Hornby thinks this could be the best, richest, strangest part of us.
--The relevance of pop music. Does all music need to change the world? Is pop music uniquely disposable? Should the lyrics look good written down? Unlike the sixties, no one today believes that music is changing the world; thus pop can be easily written off as trivial, transient, not important. Should music be complicated, intelligent? Is music that is somehow better? Pop generally isn't - and does this make it less? Less that what? Classical music? Hornby argues no. He wants his music to make him feel, and pop certain does this for most.
--Bob Dylan
--Lyrics vs tune; how the best songs are love songs

The enduring truth about Hornby is that he is such a likeable guy, and this book reinforces that - I want to be his friend, I want to hang out at barbecues and have discussions about life, music, getting older, dreams, etc. He is incredibly egalitarian in his life views and music taste - all he asks is that is sound good. Ultimately, however, this feeling will likely be all that lingers in the memory of this book. Maybe part of the problem is that it feels a little dated - as it discusses music from the year 2003?

Enjoyed this quick read - a toss between three and four stars. Funny, touching, irreverent and yet appreciative at the same time. It’s not really about the song choices here, but his appreciation for the art and skill and craft and how music moves him/us - I think I can relate.

I won this book in a songwriting contest, which is fitting. It was the hardcover, which has a great look and feel, and comes with a CD. I loved listening to the CD while reading about the individual songs, and following the journey that each song took him on.

Does anyone know if Mr. Hornby was serious when he cited the following lines (from Aimee Mann's "Ghostland") as excellent?

"Everyone I know is acting weird
or way too cool
they hang out by the pool
so I just read a lot and ride my bike around the school."

Some interesting essays, but reading this around 21 years after it was published left me wanting to read more up-to-date opinions!

Bijzonder boek. De vele muziekbesprekingen zijn slim, genuanceerd en inspirerend en geven meteen zin om de besproken titels te gaan verkennen (zelfs Bruce Springsteen). Maar wat het echt goed maakt, is hoe Nick Hornby zijn bedenkingen en associaties bij de songs gebruikt om zichzelf te omschrijven. Doorheen het boek krijg je dan ook op een heel subtiele manier een duidelijk gevoel over wie de auteur is. Heerlijk.

Een van de citaten die ik aanduidde (over Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen):
'When it comes down to it, I suppose that I too believe that life is momentous and sad but not destructive of all hope, and maybe that makes me a self-dramatizing depressive, of maybe it makes me a happy idiot, but either way 'Thunder Road' knows how I feel and who I am, and that, in the end, is one of the consolations of art.'

Alcuni giorni fa ho ricevuto un bellissimo regalo: un cuscino poggiatesta per la vasca da bagno. Oggetto che desideravo da tanto tempo. E’ la sua anima arrogante e inutile travestita da manufatto con finalità d’uso ad attirarmi. Esattamente come le canzoni . La prima volta che presi coscienza dell’esistenza di un simile oggetto fu in un cinema, secoli fa, incauto spettatore di Nightmare e l’unico ricordo che ho di quel film è una scena, assai secondaria, in cui una mamma raccomanda al figlio (o era una figlia?) di utilizzare nella vasca il poggiatesta per evitare di affogare (?!) al sopraggiungere di un eventuale colpo di sonno. In prima battuta pensai che diavolo di popolo è un popolo che affoga in una vasca da bagno , e soprattutto un popolo che progetta costruisce vende e consuma poggiatesta da vasca? Poi conclusi che in fondo è lo stesso popolo che è riuscito a rendere industria globale un oggetto assai più immateriale e bizzarro come la canzone.
Da felice possessore di poggiatesta ho ripreso in mano questo libello di Nick Hornby -libro da leggersi obbligatoriamente in vasca- scrittore poggiatesta per eccellenza , della cui produzione ho letto molto ma ricordo poco, come certi filmetti horror o talune canzonette, scrittore inutile e, a volte, piacevole appunto come un poggiatesta da vasca. Qui Hornby, una volta tanto, lascia da parte l’usurata formuletta del chik lit per maschietti e adotta una lingua rozza, discorsiva, quasi da bar, adattissima all’argomento trattato. Un elenco di 31 canzoni che spazia dal molto alto (Dylan, Patti Smith, Van Morrison) al molto basso (Nelly Furtado) senza soluzione di continuità. Ma non ha alcuna importanza. Le 31 canzoni possono essere tranquillamente sostituite da altre qualsiasi 31 capate a caso dal canzoniere universale per portare avanti il giochetto volutamente ingenuo innescato da Hornby. La tesi di fondo, esplicitamente non dichiarata, ma ovvia cordicella che infila tutte le 31 false perle, è il domandarsi (e rispondersi) come può un adulto trasferire un tot di passione (un bel po’ di tot) verso quei quattro minuti quattro di esile trama musicale, quell’innocente approssimazione di una rappresentazione estetica della realtà quale è la musica pop. E’ una domanda che insegue tutti noi, attempati e suggestionabili idioti che corrono dietro al nulla in musica.
Su una cosa io e H. siamo d’accordo: il corpo a corpo con la canzone è un corpo a corpo con il mistero, non è importante tirar giù il vestito musicale a certe creature fragili, si avrebbero solo brutte sorprese, gli ingredienti è buona regola lasciarli segreti, il disvelamento interrompe il gioco, meglio quindi bendarsi gli occhi e cercare a tentoni una qualunque di quelle 31 maniglie che aprono la porta di quel mondo parallelo. Siamo persone predisposte alla fede e all’abbaglio, alla fede nell’abbaglio.
Su molte altre siamo in netto disaccordo, ma non importa, in fondo mi sono sempre posto un paio di domande intorno agli inglesi: la prima è quale cortocircuito culturale sia l’origine dell’invenzione di una cosa come il porridge, la seconda è perché esiste Rod Stewart.A una delle due, Hornby mi ha risposto. E tanto basta

Nick Hornby has been one of my favorite writers of the last quarter century, especially his novels High Fidelity and Fever Pitch. I enjoyed his curated lists of popular music he loves, woven in with an always interesting (to me at least) stream of consciousness along various theme lines. His list of 31 favorite songs is eclectic, spans both sides of the pond and has a nice combination of the critically acclaimed we're supposed to like and guilty pleasures (Jackson Browne anyone?). The new (for the edition I read) 15 albums section at the end starts well but ends up less organized and somehow incomplete. I enjoyed playing the songs while reading and realized I haven't listened to nearly enough Teenage Fan Club, Aimee Mann, Steve Earle or Los Lobos in this century. I also loved "So I'll Run" by Butch Hancock & Marce LaCouture and how it ties in to High Fidelity. I even listened to the list of "Some New Favorite" 2002/2003 songs added to the final page of the paperback edition I read. Good fun, all in all.

"The dance floor is still, to me, the social equivalent of the North Sea during English seaside holidays - something to be treated with the utmost fear and caution, something you walk toward and away from over a period of several hours while battling with your own courage, something you plunge into briefly and uncomfortably while every corpuscle in your blood scrams at you to get out before it's too late, something that leaves lots of important parts of you feeling shriveled." p128

Songbook was going to be (I thought) my introduction to Nick Hornby. Hornby is, of course, the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy. I was looking forward to seeing Hornby's legendary mordant wit on display. To a certain extent that actually happened in Songbook, which is a collection of essays on music, specifically the music the author loves most-pop music. I cannot disparage the subject matter, but the book itself became a painful slog I only finished through sheer stubbornness. I quit even trying to listen to the author's musical choices after the first few essays. I am not sure what precipitated this reaction-maybe we like the same music but different songs, Mr. Hornby.