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Book Review
Aug. 30th, 2014 08:50 pmThe History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs
by Greil Marcus
Despite the title, this is not so much a history of rock as it is a wonderful meditation on the essence of rock and roll and its development. Marcus frames this mediation by examining ten different songs, broken up with an interlude that brilliantly imagines an alternative history wherein blues legend Robert Johnson does not die in 1938 but continued to live through the rest of the 20th century. The ten songs are not at all the ones that would immediately come to mind for most people: "Shake Some Action", "Transmission", "In the Still of the Nite", "All I Could Do Was Cry", "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", "Money (That's What I Want)", "Money Changes Everything", "This Magic Moment", "Guitar Drag", and "To Know Him Is To Love Him". Yet they all prove to be great vehicles for Marcus' exploration of what rock really is and what it really does. Each song becomes a jumping off point for Marcus' investigation of the song's context and the web of connections and associations it conjures up. He has an amazing knack for taking what has been typically seen as non-serious and ephemeral and showing how it is extremely vital to our culture and lives.
by Greil Marcus
Despite the title, this is not so much a history of rock as it is a wonderful meditation on the essence of rock and roll and its development. Marcus frames this mediation by examining ten different songs, broken up with an interlude that brilliantly imagines an alternative history wherein blues legend Robert Johnson does not die in 1938 but continued to live through the rest of the 20th century. The ten songs are not at all the ones that would immediately come to mind for most people: "Shake Some Action", "Transmission", "In the Still of the Nite", "All I Could Do Was Cry", "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", "Money (That's What I Want)", "Money Changes Everything", "This Magic Moment", "Guitar Drag", and "To Know Him Is To Love Him". Yet they all prove to be great vehicles for Marcus' exploration of what rock really is and what it really does. Each song becomes a jumping off point for Marcus' investigation of the song's context and the web of connections and associations it conjures up. He has an amazing knack for taking what has been typically seen as non-serious and ephemeral and showing how it is extremely vital to our culture and lives.
