Turn Down the Music and Read: Your Song Changed My Life

Paradise With Kitty A Pieces Of My Mother Mixtape

Turn Down the Music and Read: Your Song Changed My Life

There are many things to love about my neighborhood indie bookstore but right up there in the Top 3 is that when the owner receives galley copies of music-themed books she’s considering stocking, she pretty much hurls it at me when I enter the store and says, “Tell me what you think.”

So did I come into possession of Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It (HarperCollins, April 2016) by Bob Boilen, host and creator of NPR’s All Songs Considered.

It’s a nifty little read for any music lover – from his perch behind the desk where Tiny Desk Concerts are made, Boilen’s come in contact with artists from every genre and background, and has an expansive view of music that allows him to make connections that most any other writer would miss. Boilen was also a musician himself, and before that, worked at a record store. So whatever entry point the specific artist has to the song that changed his or her life, Boilen can relate on a personal level.

The book’s structure is pretty straightforward: Boilen sits down with an artist – often just before they’re due to play in D.C’s iconic 9:30 club – and starts a meandering conversation that will lead to which song changed the performer’s life. By the ¾ point in the book, I did want to pat Boilen on the shoulder and say, “It’s not going to be the song you think it’s going to be. Surely by now you see that.” And in a few cases some tighter editing would have been welcome, to make the individual essays tie together a bit more. But those are very minor points.

Mostly, Boilen plays an able host for his readers, giving us enough backstory on artists for people who may be unfamiliar with them, but not lingering too long there and losing the interest of the readers who are already fans. From there it’s about following the story to that one, life changing song, and understanding why it was so important. Finally, using his All Songs Considered cred, Boilen points to the places in the artist’s catalog where echoes of that song poke through.

For instance, Jenny Lewis was a total hip-hop head, thanks to a mixtape of Run D.M.C. and Beastie Boys music given to her by…wait for it…’80s teen heartthrob Corey Haim. She couldn’t be pigeonholed to a single song and chose The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest. Boilen immediately connects her love of wordplay inherent in rapping and hip hop with the way that she overwrites lyrics on her more country/rock sounding solo albums – as he say, “It’s all about the words for Jenny.”

The Decemberists’ lead singer Colin Meloy cites “Hardly Getting Over It” by Hüsker Dü. Meloy describes as “beautiful, aching, gorgeous, acoustic,” a departure from the rest of Hüsker Dü’s harder-core sound. It’s exactly that willingness to veer from what people expect of the band that Boilen sees as the link between The Decemberists and “Hardly Getting Over It.”

There were more than a few artists I’d never heard of but ended up seeking out, like Israeli singer Asaf Avida and Kate Tempest, after reading about the songs that changed their lives (“Famous Blue Raincoat” by Leonard Cohen and “Twelve Jewlez” by RZA, for the record.)

For a few other singers whose music I knew, but not much else, YSCML was an eye opening view into their worlds. The Cat Power chapter was particularly moving in this regard; this fragile, mercurial performer chose the Aretha Franklin version of “Amazing Grace” and Boilen, with efficiency and empathy, draws out the reasons why a song with such power and hope could save her.

It’s impossible to read this and NOT consider: what song changed my life? What one song? Maybe that’s the real genius of this book – getting these musicians to settle on a single song.

If you have an answer I’d love to hear it – leave it in the comments. (Reading your picks will give me more time to think of my own, which is proving to be next to impossible…)