Thanks to NetGalley and Overcup Press for the advanced reader copy.

This week’s headline? Any old time you use it

Why this book? Music is life

Which book format? ARC

Primary reading environment? On the couch with Covid listening to music

Any preconceived notions? Hoping this isn’t academic

Identify most with? n/a

Three little words? “private mental mixtape”

Goes well with? Your favorite song(s), long car rides, nostalgia

Recommend this to? Music enthusiasts

Other cultural accompaniments: https://open.spotify.com/track/2sW8fmnISifQTRgnRrQTYW?si=EMBy_aMATQyrHcG0OXqfPQ

https://open.spotify.com/track/6illsnZ2rn1lCzXY9gBC28?si=5NSTc_NXRQe9f4gPLB8CDg&context=spotify%3Aplaylist%3A37i9dQZF1EphpgafwCZdI1

Grade: 4/5

I leave you with this: “Music that first entered my ears in the distant past annotates the present.”

📚📚📚

A Mind Full of Music is like music to my ears. 🤣 I know, I know. Stupid joke. This collection of essays contemplates on why people love music and how it shapes us, how it helps us better understand ourselves. At certain points among his personal music memories, Forhan picks out specific songs to review and catalogues the minutia, the beauty behind each song.

I’m a singer and music has been a huge part of my life for a majority of it. I’ve found so many moving songs and pieces of music that have made me feel emotions I’d never thought I’d feel or experience things that have never happened to me. Music has made me a more empathetic person. Music has been one of the only things that has made me feel like I have purpose. I live in the songs, the songs live in me. The words and melodies are branded into my brain and I take them with me everywhere I go. I hear music in everyday interactions, from the simplest sounds. The wheels start turning, the gears start shifting, and a song is born. I could wax poetic for days but Instagram has a character limit.

There’s a quote from one of my favorite books by Ellen Miller, part of it is the title itself - “Listening to music is like being killed.” And to that I add on, “but it can also bring you back to life.”

A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song will be released on September 20, 2022.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Overcup Press for an advance copy of this new book on why we love music and how music helps us understand ourselves.

Since in early age I can remember songs my mother sang, songs my father played on our console stereo and songs that drove my brother mad, he being more of a pop persuasion, and myself being that pretentious person that thinks a song only starts to get interesting and the nine minute mark. Even now I love finding new songs, old songs that are new, and playing those hits that remind of being happy of sad. I have read a lot of books on music, memoirs, biographies, overviews and genres, but not a book like this, that reminded me why I loved to play a song on a walkman, or an IPOD till the batteries drained. Chris Forhan, a professor and poet has in A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song written one of the few books on music that really is about the songs, but what the songs mean to the listener.

The book begins as all good books do with a journey, an annual family trip from the Midwest to New York, accompanied by songs that fit the country and states being driven through, and the driver's state of mind. Old songs, real old songs, maybe a more modern one, each song lives in the memory of the writer, coming forward when prodded by what is seen. This is a big part of the book the personal mix tape that is in all of us, songs that only we hear, even misheard lyrics that fill what we want to be hearing. There are essays on his children's listening habits, Crocodile Rock seemed to be a big song, before the introduction of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. There are essays on lyrics, why songs work and how the singer can make them work. Mostly the book is on the enjoyment of music, something the author wants to share.

The book is engaging right from the beginning with a writing style that could be called poetic, but informative. One big plus is that a lot of songs are mentioned and a person can spend a lot of time on Spotify looking for songs, or tracking them down the old fashioned way in used record shops. I second his opinion on Vic Chesnutt, an artist I've liked for a long time, and I enjoyed his analysis of why he was a writer of rare skill and talent. A lot of why songs work are covered, their ability to be worm their way into the brain, the what the lyrics are written, and how the artist can present them. And also the times we heard the songs, good, bad or indifferent. Quite a lot is presented in this book, and the reader is left with much to think about.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, one of the best books on why I listen and enjoy music, that I have read. In fact maybe one of the few. A book that can be read all at once, or in chapters like zen koans, preferably while listening to something. What comes across is not that one song is better than another, or that a genre or time period is better. The important thing is what the music does for you. Make you feel better if you want, maudlin if you want, whatever that song does for you that is the perfect song. This is the first book that I have read by Chris Forhan, I will have to look for more by him as I really enjoyed this quite a bit.

As someone for whom music has been a really important part of my life, I thoroughly enjoyed the evocative mix of musical memories in this unusual little book. I am of the age to remember many of the artistes and songs mentioned but even when this was not the case it was still nice to be given a little view into another person's musical memories.

Anyone with a love of music is likely to enjoy this trip down memory lane and the discussion on why certain songs evoke feelings and memories in us, or can sometimes disappointingly fail to do so. It made me realise why, and how songs are often not the same taken out of the time and circumstances we were in when they first formed part of the soundtrack of our lives.

Although I cannot say exactly who the audience is for this book, it is definitely unique. An autobiography of sorts that includes songs and musical styles through the decades and events of his life, the author takes us on a journey of melodies and lyrics. Yes, it read a bit like a college paper. I did notice that immediately. But it isn't a negative criticism, just an observation. He is, after all, a college professor.

One thing the book did do was force me to examine songs, styles, and musical influences in my own life. That was a fun personal reminiscence.