Turn Down the Music and Read: The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs

In Praise of Procrastination Precipitation Breakdown

Turn Down the Music and Read: The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs

I’ve been trying to decide which analogy I should use to describe Greil Marcus’ The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll in Ten Songs (Yale University Press, 2014.) I’ve decided to emulate the approach that Marcus, a Bay Area resident and highly esteemed writer and music critic, took in creating a “definitive” history of something that is, by its very nature, beyond easy definition. I’m just going to use all of them.

But first: in case you’re worried that he’s actually boiling the ineffable beast that is Rock ‘n’ Roll down to only ten songs, let it go. Marcus does, explaining from the outset that he could have chosen any ten rock and roll songs to describe the form, because of its very fluidity. But the ten songs he chooses – among them “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” by Buddy Holly; “Transmission,” by Joy Division; “Money Changes Everything,” both the Robert Gray and Cyndi Lauper versions; and “Guitar Drag” by Christian Marclay – are important in that they create taut jumping off points from which hundreds or even thousands of other songs can be understood.

So here is my first analogy: reading the book is like being on a playground swing set. With one pump of energy, you’re brought up close in one direction to examine the smallest details, as Marcus manages to put into words the energy, yearning, and emotion that we all know lives within a really good song. I don’t mean he describes individual notes: I mean he describes the quality of the breath taken to even sing the note, the fleeting thought crossing the singer’s mind while inhaling, the width of the sharp edge of the sound of the backing guitar. In these places, the narrative becomes microscopic.

And then, whoosh, you’re flung backwards into the air where suddenly the whole landscape in which that note exists can be seen. You’re reading about a song, but it’s really about the civil rights movement, or the Vietnam War, or the difficulties that a gay Jewish man in the entertainment industry might encounter. Marcus understands that it’s impossible to fully appreciate the song separate from the larger landscape, and that without some musical entry points, our societal landscape might never be understood.

Then again, the book is like a tapestry, weaving together eras, musical styles, and musicians into a cohesive, all-encompassing whole. Marcus finds the starting and end points of long, long threads – like “All I Could Do Was Cry” sung first by Etta James, much later by Beyoncé – and then weaves context above, over, and through. This is where work from so many other artists get discussed, with the author explaining how a song made in the ‘50s echoes in one sung in 1993 and reverberates on into 2012. The book makes a strong argument that no one in the rock and roll industry operates alone, and the shameless borrowing and stealing is key to its ongoing evolution.

Finally, the book is a checkered flag to music lovers pay deeper attention. Greil Marcus listens to music in a way that makes me feel sort of embarrassed about how blithely I let music enter one ear hole and exit the other, without more than an “it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it!” opinion. I hate to think of how much I’ve missed.

Audible.com gave me this book to listen to, in exchange for the chance to me to give a copy to a reader (details below.) What with working from home (no commute) and being relentlessly talked at by my family, audio books have never held much appeal – I couldn’t figure out where to fit them in. So I listened to the seven hours of narration over the course of a week’s worth of dog walks and ballet driving.

For this Luddite page turner who lacks even an eReader, there were a few things about the audio experience that I found a little frustrating; Marcus’ language is so rich, I would have dog-eared a physical copy so I could go back to reread, and include a few lines in the review. With audio, as soon as I heard it, it was gone, although his description of Motown artists performing in the 21st century looking like they were dressed by “Omar the tent maker” stuck with me. (There’s annotation functionality within Audible, but because I was always on the move when I listened I couldn’t use it.) Sometimes, particularly when I was listening in spurts while driving on errands, I wasn’t even sure what song we were talking about anymore. Marcus has never met a superlong sentence he couldn’t make longer with a couple parenthetical phrases, so I’m not convinced the auditory rather than visual input process was to blame. In fact, parts were so dense that I think hearing this book read aloud was probably better for comprehension than reading it. Anyway, you just had to wait until a Beatles or a Dylan song was mentioned to regain your bearings. Those guys showed up so much, it was like Whack-a-Mole.

It was undoubtedly a good way to fit in a “reading” experience into the spare moments of my day, and to hear the lyrical rhythms of Marcus’ prose. It helped that the audiobook is ably narrated by Henry Rollins, a choice that just reinforces the whole message of interconnectedness of the book – of course the former lead singer of punk band Black Flag should be explaining the importance of blues legend Robert Johnson. In Marcus’ hands, it all ties together.

I will be thinking about this book for months. I’d love to give you the chance to do the same. If you’d like your own audiobook copy from Audible.com, leave a comment below with the name of a song that you think deserves a spot in the top ten influential rock songs of all time. Of course there’s no right answer. Or, you’re all right. I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, March 24 at 5 pm PT using Random.org.

And I’ll leave you with the tune I ended up downloading and replaying after Marcus’ explanation of what it all meant. I always thought Lauper was a bit of a gag act, but this book gave me new-found respect for how she rose to the challenge of this song.