A esta altura de mi vida, reconozco que no me gusta tanto la música en sí como la idea de la música. O sea que, en general, no disfruto tanto escuchando música como escuchando hablar sobre ella, o leyendo sobre ella. Y aunque me interesa bastante el aspecto digamos formal del tema, del que algo entiendo pero no demasiado, prefiero por sobre ellos otro tipo de análisis, más oblicuos, más filosóficos, más personales, menos verdaderos, como los que intenta Nick Hornby en este libro.

A Hornby lo conocía, por supuesto, por Alta fidelidad, un libro repleto de nombres de canciones, y de músicos, y de ránkings, y repleto de la idea de que los gustos musicales son algo importante y trascendental. Había imaginado que Hornby sería una especie de melómano consumado, y que este libro supondría al menos una dimensión de análisis erudito. Pero nada que ver. Hornby se declara desconocedor de la materia formal, o al menos no está interesado en ella. Ni en ella ni en la importancia histórica o cultural de las piezas que analiza. Su lista es enteramente personal. En cada uno de estos treinta y un ensayos, aborda una canción que le resulta íntimamente relevante, y explica por qué. En el primero de todos, dedicado a “Thunder Road”, de Springsteen, nos dice:

“Una de las cosas fantásticas de la canción tal como aparece en Born to Run es que los primeros compases, con una armónica jadeante y un precioso piano dolorido, suenan en realidad como refiriéndose a algo acontecido antes de empezar la grabación, algo trascendental y triste pero que no destruye toda esperanza”

¿Qué querrá decir todo esto? Ciertamente, nada que sea verificable en la canción; no es un análisis musical, ni siquiera lírico. Es apenas la impresión de Hornby al escucharla, un enunciado que no tiene propiamente un valor de verdad. No significa nada, excepto que casualmente venga a completar la impresión que uno mismo tenía de la canción antes de escucharla. Lo que la música puede llegar a evocar pertenece al terreno de lo inefable, pero quizás se le pueden poner palabras que de alguna manera se aproximan a la experiencia.

No es, para usar los términos saussureanos, una relación entre significante y significado, uno a uno, sino algo más cercano a la imagen poética y a la mística. La canción produce algo en quien la oye, algo que podríamos caracterizar como una especie de “imagen”; las palabras de Hornby, sin un referente concreto, quizás evoquen una imagen que se aproxime a la anterior. O quizás no lo logren, en tu caso, y no te digan nada.

Por mi parte, de cualquier manera, no es tampoco esto lo que más me interesa del libro. De las treinta y una canciones que lista Hornby, apenas sí conocía y había escuchado seis. El resto las oí en simultáneo con el ensayo, o después de leerlo; en general, ninguna me pareció la gran cosa. Terminé por darme cuenta de que estos ensayos bien podrían prescindir de las canciones; lo mismo hubiera sido para mí si se referían a canciones inexistentes, a canciones imaginarias, como los libros que de tanto en tanto pretendía reseñar Borges.

Cuando digo que este es el tipo de análisis que me gusta, no estoy queriendo decir que la música, o el arte en general, solo puedan comprenderse desde un punto de vista individual y subjetivo, sin atender a las virtudes de la composición. No creo en eso, para nada. Lo que digo es que el ejercicio de la crítica, en el rubro que sea, debe ser considerado como otra rama de la literatura, capaz de los mismos logros artísticos, y que no debe juzgarse en relación con sus referentes.

¿Importa, digamos, si el Julio César de Shakespeare se parece al Julio César histórico? ¿Importa si lo que un crítico escribe sobre la obra de Shakespeare se parece a la obra de Shakespeare? En uno y otro caso, me parece, lo que les pido es que las representaciones estén bien escritas y que sean inteligentes, no que se me asemejen a otro objeto. En este espíritu, leí el libro de Hornby no porque me interese la música, sino porque me interesa la literatura.

Un percorso originale tra 31 delle canzoni che hanno fatto di questo autore l'individuo che era nel periodo in cui scrisse questo libercolo -2003, circa-. Lettura decisamente consigliata a chi stia cercando di ritrovare la propria voce nelle canzoni altrui, a chi stia inseguendo lo swing perduto, a chi stia imparando a conoscere se stesso...e anche a tutti gli altri.

Se la musica non avesse avuto un impatto così profondo nella mia vita, mi sarei attenuta alle canoniche 3 stelle del "mi è piaciuto", ma non è questo il caso. Dopotutto si tratta di Hornby, non penso che mi pentirò di essermi sbilanciata.

Lascio qui, perlomeno per gli utenti di Spotify, la playlist -quasi- completa delle canzoni in questione Link alla playlist su Spotify

I read this book a few years ago. I picked up the book because this is the author of high fidelity. One of my favorite movies. I also was interested because the idea behind the book. In this book, Nick Hornby takes the reader through a list of his favorite songs, their significance to him and why and what he loves about music in general as well. This is a great book and I believe everyone can relate to the author's emotional connections with a song list, in their own unique way. We all love music. We all have that special song or songs. And we all have unique reasons why. This book is the author's song list and why and how each song touches him. Don't expect a work of fiction or a repeat of high fidelity. This is a different type of book that shines on its own, due largely to the authors ability to connect with his reader and his skill as an artist of words.

“You could, if you were perverse, argue that you’ll never hear England by listening to English pop music. The Beatles and the Stones were, in their formative years, American cover bands that sang with American accents; the Sex Pistols were The Stooges with bad teeth and a canny manager, and Bowie was an art-school version of Jackson Browne until he saw the New York Dolls.”
So begins Nick Hornby’s chapter on why England’s national anthem should change (shouldn’t they all?) from “God Save the Queen” to Ian Dury & The Blockheads “Reasons to be Cheerful.” And he lays down astute reasoning behind his wry suggestions.
In Hornby’s personal survey on music, “Songbook,” he ponders many ideas, among them how many Dylan discs are really enough. Apparently five is all you need even though he amassed 20+ discs and collections as we all did. And he’s right; he’s right about so many songs and artists and pop movements that you can’t help but stop and cue up Youtube. You’ll even cue up “Late for the Sky” by Jackson Browne just to see if Hornby’s post-40s sensibilities align with your growth from The Ramones to songs with meaning.
Often they do. Hornby’s re-examined musical history is right on. “I can’t afford to be a pop snob any more, and if there is a piece of music out there that has the ability to move me, then I want to hear it, no matter who’s made it.” In the case of Hornby’s re-assessment of Browne and the “delicate Californian flowers” and his cross reference of Mojo Magazine’s top 100 Greatest Punk Singles as proof that sometimes we get some music at certain times in our lives and sometimes we’re just not attuned to other efforts is spot on. He’s right, there really isn’t 100 great punk singles, most are simple awful, but he does recognize it’s a moment in life that we hold dear. And then it’s time to move on.
Hornby’s “Songbook” isn’t clear-cutting nostalgia. He appreciates greatness and what moves us. “What must it have been like, to listen to “Like a Rolling Stone” in 1966, aged nineteen or twenty?” Hornby asks. “I heard “Anarchy in the UK” in 1976, aged nineteen, but the enormous power those records had then has mostly been lost now.” Songs got faster, louder, and shorter, so they lost the shock. Dylan, being Dylan, we mine it deeper, because it was meant to be mined. Or so we thought, and that may be why we get exhausted by ‘serious’ artists, Dylan, Zeppelin, Springsteen, until the fun is gone. As Hornby points out, “Like a Rolling Stone,” still sounds perfect. It just doesn’t sound fresh anymore.”
“Songbook” starts with an assessment of Springsteen and a mention of Dave Eggers’ theory that we play songs over and over because we have to ‘solve’ them. That may be true, but we still love the evanescence of what moves us. Then Hornby ends “Songbook” with a look at Patti Smith. “One of the things you can’t help but love about Smith is her relentless and incurable bohemianism, her assuaged thirst for everything connected to art and books and music. In this one evening she named-checked Virginia Woolf and Tom Verlaine, William Blake and Jerry Garcia, Graham Greene and William Burroughs.” While Springsteen worries about being The Boss, and as perfect as he can be, and he can be absolutely perfect, witness his song “The Rising” in response to 9/11, Smith on the other hand “seems blissfully untroubled about her status as an artist: she just is one, and it requires no further contemplation on her part.”
Hornby wrote that after seeing a transformative Patti Smith performance, and I’m convinced, as he was that night,that great artists, those that make us feel the music and art and writing channeled through them, make us all better human beings.