"Following his 2016 smash hit Anatomy of a Song, acclaimed music journalist Marc Myers collects fifty-five new oral histories of iconic songs from his popular Wall Street Journal column. Songs that sell the most copies become hits, but some of those hits become something more-iconic recordings that not only inspire a generation but also change the direction of music. In Anatomy of 55 More Songs, based on his column for the Wall Street Journal, music...

Believing that every great song has a fascinating backstory, Myers brings to life five decades of music through oral histories of forty-five transformative songs woven from interviews with the artists who created them.From "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" by Lloyd Price to "Losing my religion" by R.E.M., leading artists reveal the emotions, inspirations, and techniques behind their influential works. The result is a love letter to the songs that have defined generations....

Provides a history of the music and lyrics of a dozen Civil War songs, describing the circumstances under which they were created and performed.

Selects ten songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 that embody rock and roll as a thing in itself--in the story each song tells, inhabits, and creates in its legacy.

"A blend of literary criticism and memoir, Jennifer Moxley's FOR THE GOOD OF ALL, DO NOT DESTROY THE BIRDS recounts a life spent in the company of birds and poems, intimately attuned to the mysteries of singing. These essays trace the poet's calling to sources in birdsong and sacrifice, asking, "Must a woman be sentenced to endless night for a poet to be born?" From the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the death of the poet's mother, Moxley explores...

Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, lived in the 4th century B.C. and is thought of as one of the most important figures from classical antiquity. Aristotle was probably the most famous member of Plato's Academy in Athens, whose writings would ultimately form the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. His writings were not constrained to simply one field of inquiry but covered such various subjects as physics, biology, metaphysics,...

Insightful evaluation of the group's music. The Doors: a lasting voice, or psychedelic trash? To Greil Marcus they can be both--in the same song. More Doors songs can be heard on the radio today, forty years after Jim Morrison's death, than those of almost any group of their era. Sparked by that fact, and with the deep focus of a critic engaged with his subject, Marcus both revisits a parade of great performances and explores why and how the Doors...

P. D. James--one of the most widely admired writers of detective fiction at work today--gives us a personal, lively exploration of the human appetite for mystery and mayhem, and of those writers who have satisfied it. She examines the genre from top to bottom, beginning with the mysteries at the hearts of such novels as Charles Dickens's Bleak House, and bringing us into the present with such writers as Colin Dexter and Sara Paretsky. She compares...

This updated edition of one of the bestselling and comprehensive Broadway reference books, first published in 1985, has been expanded to include many of the most important and memorable productions of American musical theater, including revivals. Arranged chronologically, beginning with musicals from just after the Civil War, each successive edition of the book has added valuable updates about trends in musical theater as well as capsule features...