As an obsessive lover of music--not any specific type, era, or style--I often find it nearly impossible to explain why I like or dislike a certain song to friends. Since they can't understand that a song just "sounds" right or doesn't, what more is there to say if they cannot understand me by listening to the song? Over the past year though, I have had some recourse from my frustration. Nick Hornby, whose praises I will continue to sing until after he has stopped writing, released a gem in 2003 called Songbook/31 Songs, in which he published a series of short essays explaining and analyzing his love for 31 songs. Speaking of his most-listened to song, Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road, he writes about the last time he had listened to the song: "yes, I was in a car, although I probably wasn't driving, and I certainly wasn't driving down any turnpike or highway or freeway, and the wind wasn't blowing through my hair, because I possess neither a convertible nor hair. It's not that version of Springsteen." It's hard to understand the joy one takes in reading a passage like this when it is placed out of context with the rest of the writing, but regardless, passages like this help the reader understand that his take on music is not a critical examination of the merits of music, but a subjective study of how the music makes you feel, what the artists may have been thinking, who influenced them, and most importantly, is this music that was made out of a pure and simple love of music-making? Needless to say, I recommend reading Songbook to anyone, along with all his other books: Fever Pitch (his famous soccer-loving memoir), High Fidelity, About a Boy, Speaking to An Angel (a compilation with Dave Eggers and others for charity), and How to be Good (a novel about the devil, angels, and life; good, but not as good as his other stuff). His new novel will be out in May, and I shall be rushing to buy it despite not having a clue what it is about.

But all this rambling came about because I just reread an essay he wrote in May for the New York Times about rock and roll music and his favorite band, Marah, who soon became one of my favorite bands after listening to them. Their CDs, especially the newest, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky, are pure rock and roll, with roots that are traceable back decades to blues, folk, and Elvis. Asked to describe them in one sentence by a friend, I told him "Philadelphia's answer to Bruce Springsteen's earliest forays into rock music (a la The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle)".

And check out Marah. Hell, just check out good rock music. And check out Nick Hornby. This is a guy who got shortlisted for the National Book Award for his writings on music. And oh yeah, he thinks "Hey Ya!" is a great song for more than just its catchiness. I leave you with his comments:

"In truth, I don't care whether the music sounds new or old: I just want it to have ambition and exuberance, a lack of self-consciousness, a recognition of the redemptive power of noise, an acknowledgment that emotional intelligence is sometimes best articulated through a great chord change, rather than a furrowed brow. Outkast's brilliant "Hey Ya!," a song that for a few brief months last year united races and critics and teenagers and nostalgic geezers, had all that and more; you could hear Prince in there, and the Beatles, and yet the song belonged absolutely in and to the here and now, or at least the there and then of 2003."

Here is a link to the NY Times article, which makes for an excellent read (much more fun than one of those horrendous "defense of neo-con policy" op-eds that are written by the like of Richard Perle).