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Lit Riffs: Writers "Cover" the Songs They Love
by
Matthew Miele ,
Neil Strauss (Goodreads Author)
Twenty-four celebrated writers have penned stories inspired by great songs. Just as Bangs cast new light on a Rod Stewart classic with his story "Maggie May," about a wholly unexpected connection between an impressionable young man and an aging, alcoholic hooker, the diverse stories here use songs as a springboard for a form dubbed the lit riff.
softcover, 432 pages
Published
November 1st 2007
by MTV
(first published 2004)
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Several great stories, standouts thus far being "Bouncing" by Jennifer Belle, inspired by Paul Simon's "Graceland," in which a middle-aged woman from NYC attends a suburban birthday party and realizes the depths of her loneliness, and the potential to escape. Also Tom Perrotta's "Dirty Mouth," about a kid who refuses to curse, based upon Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" as well as Johnny Cash's cover of the song. Perrotta's tale was almost too short for my ...more
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. Instead I was bored, frustrated and a little angry that someone thought this was the best that this premise had to offer. I've read a lot of short fiction anthologies in my day from either required reading for the fiction programs I was in during 2 of my stints in higher education or my feeling that they are a good way to discover new authors without having to commit to a whole novel. This was a great idea for a collection after all all writer's w...more
Kim
rated it
Recommends it for:
music lovers, fans of short stories
Recommended to Kim by:
found it through hannah :)
I wasn't particularly a big fan of short stories until I read this book. I was intrigued by the "writers cover their favorite songs" sub title. What could possibly be greater than that?
My personal favorites were 'Bouncing',inspired by Paul Simon's "Graceland", which reminded me a little bit of my story 'Hound Dog' that I'm getting published this fall. It also takes a music buff to know that not only is the story's title a Paul Simon song, but that the writer was u...more
My personal favorites were 'Bouncing',inspired by Paul Simon's "Graceland", which reminded me a little bit of my story 'Hound Dog' that I'm getting published this fall. It also takes a music buff to know that not only is the story's title a Paul Simon song, but that the writer was u...more
I was really pumped about this book - music, books, what could be a better combination? But I increasingly learned as I read more that perhaps it is just impossible to write stories that are about songs. Inspired by songs, perhaps, but "inspiration" is a very loose thing, so that this doesn't really stick out to me as a collection of stories about songs but really just a collection of very random stories. (With the exception of a few, like Toure's, which are very obviously about a spec...more
This is a good collection of stories. However, I think that the idea itself is better than the thing as a whole. Most of the songs 'covered' are among my favorites, and it was nice to see the art stretched.
I really wanted to like this, especially the Lester Bangs story, based on "Maggie May" - which is one of my favorite oldies songs. But I read that one and skimmed others (mostly where I knew what the inspiration song was, which wasn't very many), and I wasn't all that impressed.
Nancy
is currently reading it
I've only read the first story so far, but OH MY GOD. It blew my mind. I'll never listen to the song quite the same way again, and that's okay.
Remember albums? This book is like s good one ... the gems outweigh the odd clunker and the filler is still decent.
Jaime
added it
I keep going back to this. Some are fantastic. Some are inspiring. Others just aren't. Cool idea, though.
view all 6 comments
Sarah Pi
marked it as never-finished
Eh. This sounded like fun, but the handful of stories I've slogged through really weren't any fun at all, and I'm just going to return it to the library today. Good concept, poorly executed.
I admit, I didn't read every single piece in this book. Like most anthologies, this was uneven, and the opening piece, "Maggie May" was so wonderful and strong, that I found myself comparing other pieces to it as I read. J.T. Leroy's sample was unremarkable and annoying. It's a nice conceit though, and best read with iTunes open. I really liked listening to a song and then reading the author's riff -- many were really inventive in the direction that they went. Bottom line, it made...more
Hannah
rated it
Recommends it for:
fans of short stories, music fans
Recommended to Hannah by:
aimee bender had a story in it, and i found this book while sear
Shelves:
short-story-collections-and-essays
It is sort of difficult to review this book overall since it is a collection of short stories, all by different authors; some of the stories i did not like that much, and i would individually would have rated about a 3, but there were also quie a few five-star stories, which is why i rated five stars overall. my favorite stories were the ones by aimee bender, lester bangs, johnathan lethem, darin strauss, elissa schappell, ernesto quinonez & amanda davis.
Pick a favorite song, and write about it. There is something very dear to my heart about this book,and though some stories stand out more than others, I appriciate a good project, and compilations with a prompt are always fun, especially when they pay tribute to music which each author clearly feels passionate about.
Lester Bangs was a phenomenal writer, and I don't even like the song Maggie May...much.
Lethem's story is great, Perrotta even better. LeRoy's pretty good too. A great idea, but very hit or miss collection where nothing really stands up to the original inspiration of Bangs's 40 page story I reference above.
Lethem's story is great, Perrotta even better. LeRoy's pretty good too. A great idea, but very hit or miss collection where nothing really stands up to the original inspiration of Bangs's 40 page story I reference above.
I was afraid the premise would mean these stories would feel forced, but for the most part, they didn't. Good collection, good variety.
These are short stories by American authors based on or inspired by rock/folk/pop songs. Songs include "Remedy" by the Black Crowes and Paul Simon's "Graceland."
This book is awesome! I love music and really appreciated the concept...people writing from being inspired by songs...check it out.
I teach a couple of short stories from this collection. Not bad overall. A must for the pop music in American lit completist.
i found about every other story to be interesting.
I expected more. Maybe my expectations were just too high.
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is currently reading it
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