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Magic: A Journal of Song
“Scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, singing into my phone with these funny little rough ideas. All of a sudden, it turns into something beautiful or complete… it’s a fascinating thing. It’s magic.” — Paul Weller
In Magic: A Journal of Song, Paul Weller gives the first and definitive account of his illustrious songwriting career, recounting a lifetime of lyrics in Weller’s most candid and intimate commentary to date.
As one of the most innovative and remarkable songwriters of the last fifty years, Paul Weller has proved to be the ultimate shapeshifter, moving from the Jam’s punk sensibilities to the genre-defying Style Council, and later through a remarkable 30-year solo career. Alongside Lennon and McCartney, Weller is one of few artists that has attained a UK number one album over five consecutive decades, and he’s also received career defining awards from the BRITs (Lifetime Achievement Award), NME Awards (Godlike Genius Award) and a GQ Award for Songwriter of the Year.
The book chronicles a lifetime worth of lyrics with impressive clarity. We follow Weller through his upbringing on Stanley Road and founding the Jam in his teenage years, creating the Style Council alongside keyboardist Mick Talbot, and later into his 16-album solo career, including stories behind iconic albums such as Stanley Road and Wild Wood, as well as his latest album, Fat Pop Vol. 1.
Magic presents 130 of Weller’s finest lyrics to date, accompanied by an illuminating commentary which sees him give unprecedented insight into his life and lyrics, as told to GQ editor and author, Dylan Jones OBE, in their first collaboration.
“Paul Weller has proved that he is not only beyond reproach, in some senses he is quite possibly without equal.” — Dylan Jones
“The thing I have discovered is that music in its truest sense is beyond any trend or movement or category.” — Paul Weller
In Magic: A Journal of Song, Paul Weller gives the first and definitive account of his illustrious songwriting career, recounting a lifetime of lyrics in Weller’s most candid and intimate commentary to date.
As one of the most innovative and remarkable songwriters of the last fifty years, Paul Weller has proved to be the ultimate shapeshifter, moving from the Jam’s punk sensibilities to the genre-defying Style Council, and later through a remarkable 30-year solo career. Alongside Lennon and McCartney, Weller is one of few artists that has attained a UK number one album over five consecutive decades, and he’s also received career defining awards from the BRITs (Lifetime Achievement Award), NME Awards (Godlike Genius Award) and a GQ Award for Songwriter of the Year.
The book chronicles a lifetime worth of lyrics with impressive clarity. We follow Weller through his upbringing on Stanley Road and founding the Jam in his teenage years, creating the Style Council alongside keyboardist Mick Talbot, and later into his 16-album solo career, including stories behind iconic albums such as Stanley Road and Wild Wood, as well as his latest album, Fat Pop Vol. 1.
Magic presents 130 of Weller’s finest lyrics to date, accompanied by an illuminating commentary which sees him give unprecedented insight into his life and lyrics, as told to GQ editor and author, Dylan Jones OBE, in their first collaboration.
“Paul Weller has proved that he is not only beyond reproach, in some senses he is quite possibly without equal.” — Dylan Jones
“The thing I have discovered is that music in its truest sense is beyond any trend or movement or category.” — Paul Weller
- GenresMusic
400 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 4, 2025
Should of been called Pure Magic.
July 23, 2024
I picked this up because I was a huge teenage fan of The Jam, and was curious to see what Weller had to say about some of the early stuff. The premise of this hefty book is that Weller went through his massive catalogue of songwriting and picked out a hundred songs to say something about. So the lyrics to those hundred are given a page with a facing page of his musings on the song, all surrounded by tons and tons of photos of Weller along with various album art, tour ephemera, etc. It's kind of like an adult version of one of those slick fan promo books that used to come out in the 1970s and 80s. After a certain point, how many more photos of him posing for a magazine or album shoot, or strumming a guitar can one look at?
The book proceeds chronologically, with the first 100 pages on The Jam, then 70 on The Style Council, and then the whole second half of the book (170 pages) is his solo work (which never made much of a splash over here in the US). Unfortunately, Weller really doesn't have much interesting to say about his process or the songs themselves. He's pretty bland and elliptical about his craft, and for someone so creative, comes across as pretty bored with it all. Of course at age 60+, he's seen and done it all, so I guess that makes sense, but there's a distance to it all that doesn't exactly allow for much connection. It did make me interested in going through his solo albums to have a listen -- FWIW, he cites Aspects as his best song. Overall, kind of interesting to flip through once if you're a fan, but that's about it.
The book proceeds chronologically, with the first 100 pages on The Jam, then 70 on The Style Council, and then the whole second half of the book (170 pages) is his solo work (which never made much of a splash over here in the US). Unfortunately, Weller really doesn't have much interesting to say about his process or the songs themselves. He's pretty bland and elliptical about his craft, and for someone so creative, comes across as pretty bored with it all. Of course at age 60+, he's seen and done it all, so I guess that makes sense, but there's a distance to it all that doesn't exactly allow for much connection. It did make me interested in going through his solo albums to have a listen -- FWIW, he cites Aspects as his best song. Overall, kind of interesting to flip through once if you're a fan, but that's about it.
April 19, 2023
Great book for the Weller fan and anyone who wants to know what makes a songwriter tick. 100 lyrics from a 45 year career, hundreds of photos including many I have never seen before and insights into the life of someone who usually lets his songs do the talking
February 10, 2024
Outstanding.
'I can be scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, or singing a funny little idea into my phone, and all of a sudden, it becomes a beautiful fully fledged song. And I'm asking myself, how did we do that again? I still find that fascinating. It's magic.' - PAUL WELLER
'I can be scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, or singing a funny little idea into my phone, and all of a sudden, it becomes a beautiful fully fledged song. And I'm asking myself, how did we do that again? I still find that fascinating. It's magic.' - PAUL WELLER
May 14, 2026
Not really a journal of song. More like a picture/coffee table book with paltry notes thrown in about a handful of songs.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews