#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Washington Post Notable Book Excerpted in The New Yorker A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through his most meaningful songs. Finally in paperback and featuring seven new song commentaries, the #1 New York Times bestseller celebrates the creative life and unparalleled musical genius of Paul McCartney. Spanning sixty-four years—from his early days in Liverpool, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his solo career—Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics revolutionized the way artists write about music. An unprecedented “triumph” (Times UK), this handsomely designed volume pairs the definitive texts of over 160 songs with first-person commentaries on McCartney’s life, revealing the diverse circumstances in which songs were written; how they ultimately came to be; and the remarkable, yet often delightfully ordinary, people and places that inspired them. The Lyrics also includes: · A personal foreword by McCartney · An unprecedented range of songs, from beloved standards like “Band on the Run” to new additions “Day Tripper” and “Magical Mystery Tour” · Over 160 images from McCartney’s own archives Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, The Lyrics is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

This book is unique in offering practical advice on writing song lyrics within a critically informed framework. Part I provides the theoretical underpinning, while Part II covers the creative process, pulling together all the best songwriting advice and offering practical exercises. Fusing creative guidance with rigorous criticism, this is an essential companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students of songwriting, creative writing and music. Lively and accessible, it is a one-stop shop for all aspiring songwriters.

In The Meat Puppets and the Lyrics of Curt Kirkwood from Meat Puppets II to No Joke!, Matthew Smith-Lahrman sheds light on the words of Curt Kirkwood, founding member and songwriter of the Meat Puppets, a pioneering rock ’n’ roll band of the last forty years. Smith-Lahrman covers Kirkwood’s lyrics on nine albums, from 1983 to 1995, when he wrote virtually every lyric for the band. A lyricist whom Rolling Stone writer Kurt Loder once rated alongside Bob Dylan, Kirkwood remains an important, yet overlooked songwriter. The original Meat Puppets spent their early career releasing albums on the seminal indie rock label SST Records, moving on to the major label London Records in the early 1990s. Along the way they forged a unique blend of punk, country, psychedelic, and hard rock that paved the way for the grunge and alternative movements. As a lyricist, Kirkwood commonly addresses the individual psyche and behavioral expectations, drug use, mental illness, and Christianity. As the original Meat Puppets began to dissolve, Kirkwood turned to writing about personal issues: his frustrations with the major label industry, the death of his mother, the addictions of his brother, and the demise of the band itself. The Meat Puppets and the Lyrics of Curt Kirkwood from Meat Puppets II to No Joke! is the perfect work for Meat Puppets fans worldwide.

The Poetics of American Song Lyrics is the first collection of academic essays that regards songs as literature and that identifies intersections between the literary histories of poems and songs. The essays by well-known poets and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Claudia Emerson, Peter Guralnick, Adam Bradley, David Kirby, Kevin Young, and many others, locate points of synthesis and separation so as to better understand both genres and their crafts. The essayists share a desire to write on lyrics in a way that moves beyond sociological, historical, and autobiographical approaches and explicates songs in relation to poetics. Unique to this volume, the essays focus not on a single genre but on folk, rap, hip hop, country, rock, indie, soul, and blues. The first section of the book provides a variety of perspectives on the poetic history and techniques within songs and poems, and the second section focuses on a few prominent American songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Stipe. Through conversational yet in-depth analyses of songs, the essays discuss sonnet forms, dramatic monologues, Modernism, ballads, blues poems, confessionalism, Language poetry, Keatsian odes, unreliable narrators, personas, poetic sequences, rhythm, rhyme, transcription methods, the writing process, and more. While the strategies of explication differ from essay to essay, the nexus of each piece is an unveiling of the poetic history and poetic techniques within songs.

This Bibliography assembles annotation of collections and criticism of lyrics of religious and secular love, carols and songs, and rhymes of everyday life. The Middle English lyrics and short poems form a varied group that ranges over most aspects of life to include lyrics of religious and secular love, carols and songs, and mundane rhymes of everyday life. Thus there are expressionsof devotion, ethereal or earthly, theological expositions, and knowledge needed for life. The poems are disparate and generally anonymous, and their survival owes much to chance. The bibliography assembles neutral annotation of collections and criticism of the works, arranged chronologically to show the course of criticism and the growing appreciation of these poems and all they can tell us. The introduction considers these matters, problems of definitionof the genre, and the isolable lyrics, and seeks to reconcile some first impressions of the poems, as disparate and slight, with the rewards of close study. ROSEMARY GREENTREE is currently Visiting Research Fellow, Dept of English, University of Adelaide.

It’s the summer of 1981. Soon, we will celebrate Princess Diana’s royal wedding, and MTV will launch us into a new music era. However, those events will be mere footnotes in a story that is brewing in a small town in southern Illinois. Laura Hall and Blake Roberts will experience a connection that will turn their worlds upside down. Laura is a recent high school graduate who desires more. Internally, she is juggling peer acceptance, Christian values, her mother’s incessant guidance, and stifling loneliness. Blake’s interest provides an opportunity to change her life’s direction. In order to open her heart to love, Laura will need to unleash her dreams, confront her insecurities, and accept an imperfect attraction. Blake is a college student with a promising future. He is earning a degree at a fine university, plans to get engaged to his high school sweetheart, and is returning to competitive athletics. He is unprepared for the turmoil that an unforeseen relationship will bring during his summer break. Blake’s path to new love will challenge his maturity, past choices, and the authenticity of his feelings. With both Laura and Blake narrating this roller coaster romance, you have the front row seat on a ride that pits peace, courage, and allegiance against chaos, cowardice, and infidelity. It’s a race against the clock as Laura’s Motown innocence collides with Blake’s rock ’n’ roll recklessness. Their journey will challenge your definition of love and expose the gap between wants and needs. In the end, you will agree that falling in love is easier said than done.

In this easy to understand, how to book for any aspiring songwriter, Larry McCabe addresses a variety of concepts including: how to get started, how to write in different song forms, how to approach titles, themes and lyrics, the creation of a melody, utilization of various chords and chord progressions, finding the right chords for the melody, handling various rhythmic elements, creating a lead sheet and copyrighting the tune. Special features include a glossary, essential supplies for novice songwriters, master chord diagrams for keyboard and guitar and an index of recorded music. Includes stereo CD.

This volume represents the first ever collection of essays on Leonard Cohen to be published in the UK and one of the very first to be produced internationally. The essays range from unique insights offered by Cohen’s award-winning, authorised biographer Sylvie Simmons through to discussions of major themes in Cohen’s output, such as spirituality and desire, and include creative reflections from a filmmaker and poets upon their own creative response to his practice. Emerging from a one day symposium organised by Professor Peter Billingham at the University of Winchester, UK, to celebrate Cohen’s 80th birthday, this Festschrift collection represents a uniquely stimulating, insightful and provocative discussion of the songs and poems of Leonard Cohen, combining academic rigour with serious engagement with this remarkable poet and singer-songwriter. In the wake of the tragic news of Cohen’s passing in late 2016, with a legacy of iconic favourites such as “Suzanne” and “Bird on the Wire” through to more recent worldwide successes such as “Hallelujah” and “Anthem”, this book is a must-read for cultural studies scholars and Cohen aficionados alike.