Reflexionen zu 31 Songs. Es ist nicht ganz klar, was diese 31 Songs wirklich bedeuten. Nach dem Vorwort denkt man, er wolle wirklich über die jeweiligen Lieder sprechen, aber er nimmt sie nur zum Anlass zu mehr oder weniger autobiographischen Anekdoten oder Grundsätzliches über Soli oder Vorurteile. Ist auch okay, aber ein bisschen Schwindel. In so einer Liste Suicides Frankie Teardrop zu finden, ist ja schon toll, aber was soll es, dass er das Stück 15 Jahre nicht gehört hat? Bei mir ist das auch drei, vier Jahre her, aber Grund, es wieder aufzulegen. Beneidenswerter Mann, der für sowas einen Verleger findet.

Nick Hornby has compiled a list of 31 or so songs that have impacted him in different ways, or the songs represent different aspects of music appreciation that Nick wants to share. He also has chapters at the end that cover albums, as well as one on boxed sets, and one on contemporary "pop" (as the book was written in 2003, it would be contemporary for 2003.) Nick's long-term love affair with music is apparent as he is intimate with every nuance of it through the chapters. Those who have similar love affairs with music will delight in his essays. Nick also has a very wry sense of humor that had me laughing out loud several times while reading.

This book is also a primer on music education. As he expounds on the intricacies of why he chose, or did not choose, a particular song, it gives me pause to reflect on aspects not considered before — which is making me a “better” appreciator of music.

I had considered blogging one of Nick's favorites each day for a month at my blog (http://tao-talk.com) and giving Nick's reasons why he chose it, but then I thought if a list will be made and shared, with the reasons why, it will be my own choices and reasons.

My biggest takeaway from Songbook is that each music lover out there has one of these lists, even if it's only in their heads and the reasons why not articulated. Nick is a genius for deciding to put his down on paper.

I was playing Queen for my daughter today, thinking it's 24 years since I first consciously listened to their music and irremediably fell in love with them (read Freddie, mostly) and I just realized I didn't say a word about this little lovely book.

"Sometimes, very occasionally, songs and books and films and pictures express who you are, perfectly. And they don’t do this in words or images, necessarily; the connection is a lot less direct and more complicated than that"

This quote really sums up what 31 Songs (Songbook) is about. There's a lot of love in it, for music, obviously, for Danny, his autistic son, for friends, for places, for Bruce (Springsteen), for Lee (not Bruce Lee, though :-)), there's sadness and there's joy. It's almost like an open invitation to introspection. I'd love to do it, but I'm not sure I'm ready to dig so deep into myself.

3 stars is probably kinder than what I should be giving it. I love nick hornby, I love music, I love high fidelity and yet this was a bit of a boring read. I think I was hoping for more interesting critique on the songs he chose, but instead it was boring anecdotes. He also contradicted himself by saying how you shouldnt be judged for liking pop music, and then judged others. It's really boring when people try to define what pop music (isn't almost everything pop?). Still cool to see what artists/songs he picked.

Can’t believe the same person who wrote High Fidelity wrote a book about music that is so… bland? In the first few pages he noted that the essays aren’t filled with “straightforward time-and-place connections” which is a shame because I found those to be the only moments where the book really shined. A few high ceilings but equally low floors.

Libro cortito y fácil de leer que recomiendo si, como en mi caso, te gusta mucho Nick Hornby.
La idea es muy simple, Hornby usa 31 canciones como hilo conductor para contar anécdotas que de una u otra forma están relacionadas con la canción de ese capítulo.
No solo usa estas canciones para contar anécdotas o vivencias, también para hablar sobre asuntos musicales más propiamente dichos, como pueden ser los solos de guitarras eternos, la capacidad que tiene el pop para hablar de nada y todo a la vez, la necesidad de escuchar letras más maduras a medida que vas creciendo, aún con el disfrute de descubrir una canción simple de vez en cuando, etcétera.
Es un libro que ayuda a entender que muchas personas sentimos de una forma u otra que la música nos acompaña a todas partes, incluso cuando no nos damos cuenta.

turns out i don't give a shit what nick hornby's favorite songs are.

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

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

Nick Hornby has the capacity of writing these things that make me think, "well anyone could have done this", but when you see most people trying to do it, they fail miserably. Kieron Gillen had to break out magicians and banging art to be able to give me similar "old british guy talks about music" feelings!

I gave this book to my husband over 20 years ago for us to read aloud and share. We finally started on that 6 years ago. And today we finished it! We shared and are sharing other books along the way but decided to push this one along to the end. We had good fun with some of it but we’re both glad it’s over.

Some of the essays are amusing, some interesting, some dated (given the massive changes to the music industry, it felt like historical fiction), and some boring. The songs were an intensely mixed bag. We sadly discovered nothing new that interested us.

My husband and I have strongly overlapping taste in music and the best part of sharing this read was our discussions. For that, Mr. Hornby, we thank you.

“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.