Sunday 5 January 2014

52 Songs, 52 Stories - The Book

52 Songs, 52 StoriesRegular readers of this blog will already know of Iain Rowan - a consistently exciting and inventive writer of crime and horror, and an Abominable Gentleman.

Well he has a new book out, called 52 Songs, 52 Stories. In his own words: "A very simple idea. Each week for a year, I picked a song at random, wrote a story inspired by it, and published it on the web to an audience of several thousand. This book is the result."

I've had the pleasure of reading most of the stories and they are predictably excellent. One of the stories is based on a song requested by me (Love Songs On The Radio by Mojave 3) and he certainly did it justice. 

Should you want to buy it (and you should) then links are here: 52 Songs, 52 Stories (UK | US)

List of songs/artists featured:

Why Don't You Kill Yourself (The Only Ones)
Never Tell (Violent Femmes)
Sexyback (Justin Timberlake)
Psychokiller (Talking Heads)
Love Songs On The Radio (Mojave 3)
Caught By The River (The Doves)
Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants (Wild Beasts)
Sabotage (Beastie Boys)
Waiting For The Man (Velvet Underground)
These Days (Nico)
Come Inside (My Bloody Valentine)
4' 33" (John Cage)
Poems (Tricky)
The Grey Ship (EMA)
Way Down In The Hole (Tom Waits)
Invocation (…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead)
Angel (Massive Attack)
We're No Here (Mogwai)
Lucky You (The National)
Everything Trying (Damien Jurado)
Wolf Like Me (TV On The Radio)
Sad and Beautiful World (Sparklehorse)
Walk Away (Sisters Of Mercy)
Jimmy James (Beastie Boys)
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (The Flaming Lips)
Someday I Will Treat You Good (Sparklehorse)
Keep On Knocking (Death)
TV Eye (The Stooges)
Elephant Gun (Beirut)
Admiral (King Creosote)
I See A Darkness (Johnny Cash)
Clandestin (Fatoumata Diawara)
Don't Ask Me To Dance (Arab Strap)
What We Gained In The Fire (The Mynabirds)
Four Ton Mantis (Amon Tobin)
A Grand Love Theme (Kid Loco)
Police And Thieves (Junior Murvin)
Seventeen Seconds (The Cure)
The Piano (PJ Harvey)
My Autumn's Done Come (Lee Hazlewood)
Blackout (Anna Calvi)
Come In Alone (My Bloody Valentine)
The Beast (The Only Ones)
Feathers and Down (The Cardigans)
Coward (Vic Chesnutt)
The Dead Part Of You (American Music Club)
Twins (Gem Club)
The Drowning Man (The Cure)
Daft Punk Are Playing At My House (LCD Soundsystem)
Hell Is Round The Corner (Tricky)
Beginning Of A Great Adventure (Lou Reed)
Closedown (The Cure)

2 comments:

NickJones said...

Sounds like an interesting idea. I'm especially interested in how Rowan got a story out of John Cage's 4'33", a favorite of mine.

James Everington said...

Now that would be telling...