Anatomy of a Song - Marc Myers

   2016; 323 pages.  Full Title: Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits that Changed Rock, R&B, and Pop.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Music History; Reference; Pop Culture; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

   The title says it all – 45 songs spanning 41 years and chronicling the development of the modern music era, focusing on Rock, Pop, and R&B, but also touching on associated genres such as folk, reggae, punk, country, alt-rock, and others.

 

    The first song – Lawdy Miss Clawdy - sung by Lloyd Price can arguably be viewed as the birth of music's modern era, as it introduced the “45” record, something receptive to teenage ears and wallets.  The last song – Losing My Religion – by R.E.M. provides the cut-off year for this book, as the author asserts that a song has to be around for 25 years or more to be able to be called “Iconic”.

 

    The book is actually a compilation of entries from a monthly Wall Street Journal column that author Marc Myers has been writing since June 2010.  There's a goodly proportion of black groups and music , and I liked that.  The 45 chapters are all short, averaging about 7 pages each, one of which is always a picture of the artist(s).  The structure each chapter is the same:

 

    a.) An overview, telling the song’s backstory, how it fared on the Billboard charts and how it impacted the music scene,

    b.) a list of people, including their professions, whom the author sought out and interviewed to research the song, and

    c.) excerpts from those interviews, explaining how each song evolved.

    Want to learn how to make a hit tune?  Here are 45 examples.

 

What’s To Like...

    Anatomy of a Song hammered home a couple points about making hit songs.  The first thing to know is that it requires the input of a lot of people: songwriters, producers, lead singers, back-up singers, bandmates, arrangers, engineers/mixers, and session musicians.  I was surprised to learn that the “radio versions” of a majority of the 45 songs were done by session musicians, who were available courtesy of whichever studio a band or singer was contractually associated with.  You want the best musicians playing the version that the radio will play; hopefully the actual band members can then learn it by the time they go on tour.

 

    The producer, mixer, and arranger, and sometimes even the singer and/or band members, then take the raw song and add things such as horns-or-strings, overdubs, upbeats, a light reggae bass line, power chords, distortion, and layering.  Isolation booths can be used, particularly for the lead singer’s part, and in order to keep each track separate and pure.  Then comes the mixing, which is a work of art.  Finally, demo tapes are made and distributed to all associated for added input and tweaking.

 

    The book is a music trivia buff’s delight.  John Kay of Steppenwolf is completely color-blind.  Bette Midler used to work as a coat-check girl.  The Marvelettes originally called themselves “The Cansinyets” a slightly garbled version of “Can’t Sing Yet”.  Early on, Aerosmith was “heavily into funk and soul”.  Dion was supposed to be on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.  He gave up his seat because he didn’t want to pay the $36 that Buddy Holly was charging for a seat.

 

    The mention of the Led Zeppelin tour in late 1969  brought back personal memories.  I was at their Phoenix concert, having snuck in via some way that I’ve long since forgotten.  Alas, Led Zeppelin quit after 30 minutes or so, announcing that lead singer Robert Plant was sick as a dog, with the evidence being that he was singing everything an octave below his normal voice range.

 

    Two additional other things stood out to me.  One was the professionalism of all the bands and singers showcased.  These are not a bunch of wide-eyed, zonked-out amateurs doing whatever they please; they are musicians/artists constantly studying their trade and trying out new things.  The second was that the constant pressure to compose new material, then rehearsing, recording, promoting, touring, making TV appearances, and trying to maintain some sort of private life, while also somehow putting out one or two albums every year is a surefire way to get totally burnt out.  The daily life of a successful rock-n-roll band lost a lot of its glamour in this book.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Achromatopsia (n.) : a condition characterized by a partial or total absence of color vision.  People with it see only black, white, and shades of gray.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 217 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.74/5 based on 1,078 ratings and 205 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    When MTV began broadcasting in August 1981, hip-hop was virtually ignored, with the cable channel focusing instead on major rock and pop acts whose labels provided MTV with music videos.  Many of those acts also happened to be white.  As MTV’s popularity and influence grew with the increasing number of cable subscribers, a rift widened between hip-hop and rock over rap’s exclusion.  Rappers viewed rockers as little more than video actors, and rockers viewed rappers as glorified disc jockeys and music thieves, not bona fide artists or musicians.  (pg. 237)

 

    “The song’s success was a complete fluke.  None of us thought that ‘Losing My Religion’ had much potential.  There’s no traditional chorus, and the lead instrument was a mandolin.  The video was unusual and groundbreaking – super-pop, super-homoerotic, and hypercharged.  In the video, I lip-synched for the first time.  But it all connected, and fans responded to the song’s realness and emotional urgency.”  (Michael Stipe, pg. 323)

 

“’White Rabbit’ is a very good song.  I’m not a genius but I don’t suck.  My only complaint is that the lyrics could have been stronger.  More people should have been annoyed.”  (Grace Slick, pg. 99)

    There are some things to quibble about, the major one, unsurprisingly, being the song-selection.  The are zero entries for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Elton John, and Bruce Springsteen.  Elvis gets one, but it’s from 1969 in the twilight of his career, not the 1950s when he dominated the music scene.  But I don't think these glaring omissions are due to any poor judgment on the part of Marc Myers; most likely he simply didn't have any interviews involving these artists.

 

     Also, the final decade in the book’s 40-year timespan, 1982-1991, is a bit sparsely represented – only three songs.  And while I enjoyed the many references to bands beyond these 45 – such as Lindisfarne, The Incredible String Band, and Stephen Stills – it would have been nice have an index of every act that gets mentioned.

 

    There’s a small amount of cussing, but it was always from direct quotes by the people Marc Myers was interviewing.  Hey, if they say it, and he quotes it, the cusswords have to be included.

 

    But let's be clear – I found Anatomy of a Song to be a fantastic book, bringing back a flood of old music memories, as well as enlightening me about just how much drudgery there is to being a music idol.  No wonder so many of them, regardless of genre, sought relief via booze and/or drugs.

 

    8½ Stars.  For the record, I was familiar with 40 of the 45 artists spotlighted here, and 35 of the songs.  Most of the unfamiliar artists were from the 1950s, which is before my time.  Your "hits" will probably be different f rom mine.

Wilderness - Volume 1 - The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison

      1988; 212 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Full Title: Wilderness – The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison – Volume 1.  Genres : American Poetry; Diaries and Journals; Rock Stars.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

    Jim Morrison.  Born December 08, 1943.  Died July 03, 1971, age 27.  Lead singer of The Doors, and a stellar member of the “27 Club" (see the review here).  But he saw himself first and foremost as a poet, and in a “self-interview” at the start of this book, he says:

    “Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities.  Opens all doors.  You can walk through any one that suits you.

    “…and that’s why poetry appeals to me so much – because it’s so eternal.  As long as there are people, they can remember words and combinations of words.  Nothing else can survive a holocaust but poetry and songs.  No one can remember an entire novel.  No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting, but so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.

    “If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”

    And that’s as good of a way to introduce Wilderness – Volume 1: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison as I can come up with.

What’s To Like...

    According to the publishers, Jim Morrison left more than 1,600 pages of poems, lyrics, stories, film scripts, etc. when he died, yet not one page was ever dated, numbered, or identified chronologically.  So there’s no order to the poems given in Wilderness – Volume 1, indeed, most of them don’t even have titles.  There is an “Index of First Lines” at the back of the book to help if you’re searching for a particular poem, and I thought that was a nice touch.

    The publishers divide the book into 10 sections of unequal length.  By far the longest part is simply called “Poems 1966-1971”, and comprises of 125 pages of the 212-page book.  The section “Ode to LA while thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased” is both ironic and haunting, since Brian Jones is also a member of the 27 Club.  “For Arden” is unique in that it has a few lines that have both meter and rhyming.  And “As I Look Back” is eerily retrospective, almost as if Jim Morrison knows he isn’t going to live much longer.

    As a longtime lover of The Doors, I enjoyed finding “early versions” of some of the lyrics that were later incorporated into the songs.  There are four “rough drafts” of L’America, a track off of L.A. Woman, and none of them are even close to resembling the final version.  The snippet of poetry in Peace Frog, from Morrison Hotel, makes two early appearances in this book.  There’s a poem titled Horse Latitudes, which is also a song title on the album Strange Days, and even a line from the titular L.A. Woman track started out a poem here.

    A half dozen or so photographs of Jim are interspersed throughout the book, along with some scans of a couple of the original pages from Jim Morrison's notebooks.  There are also a number of blank pages.  To say this book is a "fast read" is an understatement.  You can probably read the whole book in an hour or so, although personally, I find poetry easier to read in small “chunks”.

    I think the best thing about Wilderness – Volume 1 is that it gave me a glimpse of the “real” Jim Morrison.  Let’s face it, his antics and gyrations as the lead singer of The Doors are all an act.  But the scribbled prose in his notebooks give us keen insight into the strange thoughts that were swarming around in his head.

Excerpts...

    Why do I drink?

    So that I can write poetry.

    Sometimes when it’s all spun out

    and all that is ugly recedes

    into a deep sleep

    There is an awakening

    and all that remains is true.

    As the body is ravaged

    the spirit grows stronger.

    Forgive me Father for I know

    what I do.

    I want to hear the last Poem

    of the last Poet.  (pg. 119)

    Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding

    Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

    We scaled the wall

    We tripped thru the graveyard

    Ancient shapes were all around us

    No music but the wet grass

    felt fresh beside the fog

    Two made love in a silent spot

    one chased a rabbit into the dark

    A girl got drunk & made the dead

    And I gave empty sermons to my head  (pg. 180)

Which of my cellves will be remember’d?  Good-bye America.  I loved you.  (pg. 209 )

    There were a couple of nits to pick.  First, there are four or five instances of cussing in the book, but that’s a lot less than I would have expected.

    Second, many of the “poems” seem to be nothing more than bits of streams-of-consciousness that Jim Morrison jotted down for later polishing and rework.  There is some good stuff here; as the two excerpts given above demonstrate.  But the bulk of the material seems like mere jottings, just lumps of clay that Jim Morrison would later develop into literary works of art.  I have a feeling that if he was still alive today, he’d forbid these poems being published “as is”.

    Also, some of these poems are short, sometimes having as little as three lines.  That adds to the significant amounts of blank space in the book, since the publishers seem averse to combining more than one poem on a given page.

    I suppose this means the reader has lots of room to scribble in his own thoughts about the poems, or maybe even to take a stab at polishing some of these, but I think a few trees could have been saved by making more efficient use of half-filled pages, and either adding more entries from the thousand-plus pages of Morrison-penned poesy or else combining Volumes 1 and 2 in this series into a single book.

    5½ Stars.  If you’re a Doors fan, I think Wilderness – Volume 1 will be a worthwhile read, giving you an honest look at a brilliant, yet sadly troubled mind.  But if you have no idea who Jim Morrison, or The Doors are, you might want to skip this book and go listen a couple of their albums instead.

Boom!: A Baby Memoir 1947-2022 - Ted Polhemus

   2012; 402 pages.  Full Title : Boom! – A Baby Boomer Memoir 1947-2022.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Non-Fiction; Memoir; Pop Culture.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    "OK Boomer."

    What in the world did we Boomer Babies do to make that catchphrase become so popular?

    I mean, I know we brag about our music, but hey, it really is the best ever.  The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Bob Dylan.  None of today’s bands can touch those groups.  Yeah, if you want to get technical about it, none of those acts featured musicians who actually were baby-boomers, but we claim them as our own anyway.

    Our drugs were better, too.  Getting high on weed and tripping on acid.  Grooving to cosmic vibes and psychedelic colors, while the lyrics to Donovan's "Mellow Yellow".  Can today’s opioids and other meds give you anything like that?  Nah, I didn’t think so.

    Even the sex was better back then.  Free love and all that.  Birth control pills were just becoming readily available and AIDS had yet to appear in the world.  Talk about perfect timing.

    And last but not least, we had the best protests.  We’d turn out by the thousands to shut down colleges, chant slogans, and get our heads bashed in.  Man, I love the smell of tear-gas in the morning.  So what d’ya say about all that, young‘uns?

    “OK Boomer.”

What’s To Like...

    Boom! is a memoir, a genre I rarely read.  The author is Ted Polhemus, a genuine baby-boomer, since he was born in 1947.  Ted started out life in Neptune City, a small town in New Jersey, close to the more-famous rock-&-roll mecca of Asbury Park.  He studied anthropology at Temple University, and has lived in the UK for the past 30+ years.  So he’s gotten to observe the Boomer culture firsthand from both the American and English perspectives.

    The book is divided into 11 chapters, namely:

Ch. 1: 1947 - Introduction

Ch. 2: Coming Home – First four years

Ch. 3: Suburban Life – Moving to the suburbs

Ch. 4: Modern Times – The teens

Ch. 5: Sex

Ch. 6: Drugs

Ch. 7: Rock ‘n’ Roll

Ch. 8: Protest

Ch. 9: Swinging in London – Moving across the pond

Ch. 10: No Future – The birth of Punk

Ch. 11: 2022 – Where we’re heading

    Being a memoir, the author recounts a bunch of his personal experiences, but only as they relate to the Baby Boomer culture.  I’m three years younger than Ted Polhemus, so a lot of what he went through resonated with me.  He remembers exactly where he was when JFK was shot; so do I.  He revels in the childhood memory of family trips to the local Carvel Soft Ice Cream store; so do I.  His first plane trip was in 1969; mine was in 1968.   He laughs at the silliness that arises in a couple of his acid trips (including dimension-hopping and a cat exorcism); so can I.

     There’s a heavy emphasis on the music of the times, and the author's tastes in that area are excellent.  Asbury Park gave us Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny, two of  Ted's and my favorite rockers.  The author seems to not think much of Prog Rock, and we’ll have to agree-to-disagree on that one.  But his tastes in literature and movies/TV are also top-notch.

    Era-specific trivia abounds, and I loved it.  Hugh Hefner, the patriarch of Playboy magazine, was raised a strict Methodist.  There is no apostrophe in the biker-gang name “Hells Angels”, I never noticed that before.  And “Levittown” was a nationwide phenomenon that greatly catalyzed the 1950s mass exodus from cities to suburbs; I remember billboards touting one of those Levittowns close to where I grew up.

    The e-book version is 375 pages long, but the text actually ends at page 315.  The next 40 pages are titled “Sources and Inspirations”, and are simply pop-culture lists divided into headings of Music, Films, TV shows, Fiction Books, and Non-Fiction Books, all of which show you what tickles the author's fancy.  This is followed by a Timeline and some Polhemus family photographs which aid in getting a feel for life as a baby boomer.

    The final chapter, enigmatically titled “2022”, is Ted Polhemus’s predictions on how what’s in store for the aging Baby Boomers.  Written in 2012, it is well thought-out, but pessimistically bleak.  Today, eight years later and a mere two years before 2022, I am happy to say the most of the forecast doom-and-gloom has not panned out. 

 Kewlest New Word ...

Twee (adj.) : excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental.

Others: Semiological (adj.)..

Excerpts...

    Despite everything which happened in fashion, style and music, 1947’s most significant historical influence was ultimately one of simple demographics.

    There were 3.9 million of us born in America in 1947.  It had been 3.47 million in 1946.  Compared to only 2.8 million in 1945.  A similar “baby boom” occurred throughout much of the world following in the wake of the end of WWII, and had a remarkable impact on world history – a reverberating impact which is still being felt in the 21^st century; this simple demographic blip and its underlining of a generational model of history (“my generation”) becoming the key storyline which shaped the narrative of the post-war world.  (loc. 228)

    In a nutshell, the problem with Rock minus Roll was you couldn’t dance to it.

    OK, you could wave your hands around or jump about a bit, but in truth very few of us even did this.  Watch the DVD of Woodstock where, a handful of happy Hippies cavorting about at the beginning and end excepted, what you have is half a million white people sat on their butts looking up at a stage.  When, finally, Soul Funksters Sly and the Family Stone come on, we realize what’s been missing: syncopation – the “ugh”, that slight but all important warping of the space-time continuum which, once Rock had arrived, would have to seek sanctuary in Soul and Funk.  (loc. 2002)

Kindle Details…

    The Kindle version of Boom! sells for $6.00 at Amazon right now.  ANAICT, the only other e-book available at Amazon by this author is StreetStyle, which sells for $14.99.   Ted Polhemus has more than 20 other books to offer in “real book” format; you can see the complete list at Wikipedia.

 “The teenager may first have been pandered to in America, but Britain handed them the keys and, blowing raspberries at the Old Guard, just told them to get on with it.”  (loc. 2584 )

    There are a couple of nits to pick, none of which involve the book's content.  From least important to most:

    The photos are cool, and can be expanded, but not in the usual “finger-stretching” way.  Instead of tapping on a pic, press on it.  A menu will pop up which includes the option to zoom.  This then activates the finger-stretching technique.

     Like any memoir/autobiography, there is probably a bit of “skewing” of events in the past to the author’s favor.   Most of the personal things here seem reasonable, with the possible exception of the airplane sexploit at the end of Chapter 5.

    Finally, for an author with 20+ books to his credit, the editing here is atrocious.  Typos abound, and some passages get repetitious.  The most egregious typo was “Jimmy Hendrix”.  It’s “Jimi”.  Dude, that’s unforgiveable.  😎

    But I pick at nits.  Overall, I found Boom! to be an fascinating and nostalgic read.  Ted Polhemus presents the history of the Baby Boomer era in an objective fashion – noting both its plusses and minuses, and that's a big plus.

    7 Stars.  In looking at Ted Polhemus’s bibliography at Wikipedia, Boom! seems like a one-off effort, unrelated to his other works.  I sorta get the feeling this was a “bucket list” item, written by a 65-year-old Baby Boomer looking back over his life.  If so, the project was a success.