Some musicians are also really good writers. Here are seven recommendations.
Writing songs is like telling stories – at least for many musicians. Some also tried to wrap their stories in closed texts. This resulted in some wonderful books that we would like to introduce to you here.
“Just Kids” is not Patti Smith’s first book – the artist primarily writes poetry – but it is definitely her most personal. In her autobiography, the “Godmother of Punk” tells of her beginnings as a skinny young girl who secretly slept on the floor in the toilet of the store where she worked. Until the young artist Robert Mapplethorpe enters Smith’s life. And with it many personalities from the New York art scene of the 1960s.
Smith writes of being invited to dinner by Andy Warhol when she couldn’t afford it, and of chatting with Jimi Hendrix on the steps of a house when she didn’t dare go to a party. She talks about her beginnings as a visual artist, as a poet, and finally as a musician. But all of this doesn’t make Smith cocky, but in a very sober tone – she met her heroes and, like them, fought for survival. In “Just Kids” you can accompany them.
2. Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand) – Sound Bites
The singer of the British indie rock band Franz Ferdinand originally trained as a chef and worked in this profession for years before music brought in enough money to become a full-time musician.
Kapranos talks about his culinary adventures with and without his band in “Sound Bites – Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand”. Originally a column for the Guardian, the booklet is now a beautifully illustrated guide through Kapranos’ various phases of life and eating.
At the same time, you actually eat here while on tour with the band: whether they are presented with strange, not always tasty sweets by Asian fans or laughed at and laughed at by Germans when they eat “Kölschen Kaviar” (blood sausage). Many strange and funny memories are shared with readers. Including a list of restaurant recommendations in different corners of the world at the end of the book.
3. Nick Cave – The Death of Bunny Munro
Bunny Munro is a traveling salesman of beauty products who regularly sleeps with complete strangers. When his wife commits suicide, Bunny packs his son into the car and drives with him across Brighton and the surrounding area. The two experience all sorts of strange things while Bunny reflects on his life.
The Death of Bunny Munro is Nick Cave’s second novel, and has received critical acclaim. Originally from Victoria, Australia, Cave now lives in Brighton himself, which makes the road trip component of the book very authentic.
Bunny Munro seems like Nick Cave’s alter ego, and despite his numerous character flaws, is somehow the hero of the book. You feel a little closer to Cave when you read Bunny Munro’s sex fantasies with Kylie Minogue (whom Cave has known for a long time and with whom he has also worked).
Or even with the smile-worthy (anti-)joke: “Have you heard what happened to the guy who overdosed on curry powder?” – “Yeah, he’s now in a korma. “
4. Carl Barât (including The Libertines) – Threepenny Memoir
“Threepenny Memoir – The Lives of a Libertine” was released in 2010, coinciding with Carl Barât’s first solo album. After the temporary separation of The Libertines, Barât founded The Dirty Pretty Things together with Libertines drummer Gary Powell and had already buried them at the time.
In his autobiography, Barât tells of drug-filled nights, drunken escapades and difficult mornings afterwards. And of course always about his friend Pete Doherty. He focuses on a description of their close relationship, which is riddled with various problems, and less on hard facts (not least that Doherty once broke into Barât’s apartment).
An ME review of the book says: “After his years with the Libertines and the Dirty Pretty Things, during which he was little behind Doherty in terms of alcohol, sex and drug consumption, he now lives the civilized life of a therapy-seeking dad and solo artist. (…) The image emerges of a loner drifter who was liberated and at the same time paralyzed by his friendship with Pete Doherty.”
5. Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) – Girl In A Band
Kim Gordon was the bassist for the indie rock icons Sonic Youth, and also their driving force: she sang and wrote songs for Sonic Youth. At the same time she and Thurston Moore were a couple. The two have a daughter together.
After 27 years of marriage, Moore and Gordon announced their divorce in 2011. Even though it wasn’t officially communicated that way, it was also over for Sonic Youth. Four years later, Gordon’s book was published.
It is the book of her life: Gordon writes about the band’s beginnings in New York in the 80s, about life as an artist and mother, and – yes, also – about their separation.
6. Sven Regener (Element of Crime) – Mr. Lehmann
Sven Regener wrote a book (which has now grown into a whole book series) about a thirty-year-old guy who works in a Berlin bar shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. His actual name is Frank, but everyone had fun calling him Mr. Lehmann. And then still on first-name terms.
The singer, guitarist and trumpeter of the German band Element of Crime was already known as a songwriter for his playful lyrics. In “Herr Lehmann” Regener talks in an almost clumsy voice about everyday life before the fall of the Berlin Wall, about the difficulties of friendship and love, about big dogs that don’t want to let you go home.
The novel, Regener’s first, was made into a film by Leander Haußmann – with a wonderful soundtrack from Eels to Ween.
7. Leonard Cohen – The Favorite Game
Leonard Cohen’s first novel comes from a time when Cohen was still considered an up-and-coming Canadian author. His time as a scratchy-voiced song poet was still ahead of him.
The book, which was supposed to be called “Beauty at Close Quarters,” was originally rejected by Canadian publishers in 1960 as too sex-heavy and morbid. Cohen then found English and American publishers who would print his first novel – but only in a radically shortened version.
The adventures and misadventures of the young Lawrence Breavman, who comes from a Jewish family, are said to be semi-autobiographical about Cohen’s own youth. Regardless of the truth of this claim, here you get to know a young Leonard Cohen who, for the first time, uses his (here literary) voice to tell stories.