The Life of a Song

Name: The Life of a Song
Brand: Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand
SKU: 9781399800587
Price: 29.99 NZD
Availability: InStock

The stories behind 100 of the world's best-loved songs

By David Cheal and Jan Dalley

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Summary

The Life of a Song presents the fascinating stories behind 100 iconic songs, tracing their origins, transformations, and enduring impact. Each 600-word essay explores a song's 'biography', revealing surprising anecdotes such as Paul McCartney's original working title for "Yesterday" and Patti LaBelle's misunderstanding of French lyrics. Covering genres from rock to jazz and folk, the book highlights the evolving nature of these songs through various covers and reinterpretations, enriched by the artists' backgrounds and the social contexts of their times.
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Format: Paperback / softback

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The Life of a Song

$29⁹⁹

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This book is ideal for music enthusiasts, cultural historians, and readers who enjoy engaging, well-researched essays about popular songs and their legacies. Its accessible yet insightful style suits those curious about the stories behind the music they love.

The back stories behind 100 of the world's best-known and best-loved songs as featured in the FT Weekend's Life of a Song column every Saturday

Description

Discover the stories behind the songs

The Life of a Song contains the stories of 100 songs, exploring each song's biography and how they took on a new life following their release. Packed with intriguing factoids, these bite-sized essays will delight music fans and send you scurrying back to listen to the songs in all their beauty and mystery.

Who knew that Paul McCartney originally referred to "Yesterday" as 'Scrambled Eggs' because he couldn't think of any lyrics for his heart-breaking tune? Or that Patti LaBelle didn't know what "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" actually meant? These and countless other back stories fill this book.

Each 600-word piece gives a mini-biography of a single song, from its earliest form through the various covers and changes, often morphing from one genre to another, always focusing on the 'biography' of the song itself while including the many famous artists who have performed or recorded it.

This book collects 100 of the best pieces from the highly successful The Life of a Song columns from the FT Weekend every Saturday. Inside you'll find rock, pop, folk, jazz, and more. Each piece is pithy, sparingly written, knowledgeable, entertaining, full of anecdotes and surprises. They combine deep musical knowledge with the vivid background of the performers and musicians, and of course, the often intriguing social and political background against which the songs were created.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399800587

Publisher: John Murray Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 August 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 128.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 271g

Pages: 384

Collections

Arts & Culture David Cheal Jan Dalley Non-Fiction

About the Author

David Cheal has been reviewing music since the early 1980s, and was a pop critic for the Daily Telegraph for 20 years. He now works on the Financial Times arts pages, where he writes and commissions the weekly Life of a Song column and also contributes reviews and features. When he was growing up, he wanted to be Jack Bruce but never got round to learning how to play the bass.