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This Year

365 songs annotated
Brief Description
Collected and annotated lyrics from one of music's most visionary bards, John Darnielle. A work of rapturous beauty, This Year - 365 songs annotated celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of John Darnielle through his most meaningful songs. From his early days recording on... Read More
Format: Hardback
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Collected and annotated lyrics from one of music's most visionary bards, John Darnielle.

A work of rapturous beauty, This Year - 365 songs annotated celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of John Darnielle through his most meaningful songs.

From his early days recording on a boom box, through the evolution of the Mountain Goats from a solo project to a full band, to his continued influence on indie music, This Year pairs the definitive texts of 365 John Darnielle songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. These commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired themβ€”his family and friends; his wife, Lalitree Darnielle; his longtime collaborator, Peter Hughes; and even his literary heroes, among many others. Here are the origins of 'This Year', 'No Children', 'The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton', and 'Up the Wolves', as well as Darnielle's literary influences, including Flannery O'Connor, Jorge Luis Borges, and Stephen King.

This Year, spanning decades, becomes the definitive literary record of one of the greatest songwriters and musical creative forces of all time.

'An illuminated manuscript. These songs, released from their recordings, stand even more vividly as storiesβ€”self-contained, richly coloured, extending their private inks into the wider world.'
- Patricia Lockwood, author of Will There Ever Be Another You

'This lovely book is both a beautiful collection of songs and a fascinating guide to the strange work of making art in the world. A bountiful gift from one of our greatest songwriters.'
- John Green, author of A Fault In Our Stars

'These lyrics are brilliant; Darnielle is one of the best songwriters of his generation, and his words are achingly beautiful ... This Year offers a look into Darnielle's inspiration and songwriting process, and the result is even more impressive than one might expect ... An inspired project that's far better than a typical lyrics collection.'
- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781761381867

Publisher: Scribe Publications

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 03 March 2026

Country: Australia

Imprint: Scribe Publications

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 1.0mm

Width: 1.0mm

Height: 1.0mm

Weight: 1g

Pages: 560

About the Author

John Darnielle is the author of the novels Devil House, Universal Harvester, and Wolf in White Van, all three New York Times bestsellers. Wolf in White Van was a National Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction. Universal Harvester was a finalist for the Locus Award. Darnielle lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and sons when he's not on the road touring with his band the Mountain Goats.

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    From New York Times bestselling author and Mountain Goats singer/songwriter John Darnielle comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, and the dangers of storytelling. Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That's what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly successβ€”and a movie adaptationβ€”to his name, along with a series of...
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  • This Year
    Collected and annotated lyrics from one of music's most visionary bards, John Darnielle. A work of rapturous beauty, This Year: 365 Songs Annotated celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of John Darnielle through his most meaningful songs. From his early days recording on a boom box, through the evolution of the Mountain Goats from a solo project to...
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