Songbook
Updated: Aug 8
I’ve had the original hardback edition sitting on one bookshelf or another since Songbook came out in 2002. I’d thumbed through it a time or two, but for some reason never sat down to actually read it. Other than thoroughly enjoying Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy, I had no idea what to expect from Songbook whatsoever. Before reading it, I imagined how I’d write about the songs I loved, and, without actually attempting as much, I lamented that my approach would probably be terribly pedestrian, sticking to the songs themselves and exactly what it was I liked about them (the lyrics, the intricate guitar riff, perhaps where I was when I first heard it). Not so with Songbook. Hornby uses each song as a jumping-off point to talk about all manner of associated memories, images, stories, and the like; each one told with wonderful doses of humor, poignancy, angst, and even sadness. That I wasn’t familiar with many of the songs wasn’t a problem, though I feared it might be. I found myself simply caught up in Hornby’s casual style and his passion for the songs he’d chosen. In the end, though, either I or the book lost some steam, and I would have been fine with half a dozen fewer songs.
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