I Shot a Man in Reno: A History of Death by Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease and General Misadventure, as Related in Popular Song / Edition 1

by Graeme Thomson

Overview

Ask the gangsta rap devotee. Ask the grizzled blues fanatic and the bearded folk fan. Ask the goth and the indie kid. Ask and they will all tell you the same thing: death and popular music have forever danced hand-in-hand in funereal waltz time. The pop charts and the majority of radio stations' playlists may conspire to convince anyone listening that the world spins on its axis to the tune of "I love you, you love me" and traditional matters of the heart. The rest of us know that we live in a world where red roses will one day become lilies and that death is the motor that drives the greatest and most exhilarating music of all.

"Death music" is not merely a byword for bookish solemnity, or the glorification of murder, drugs and guns. Over the course of the last hundred years it has also been about teenage girls weeping over their high school boyfriend's fatal car wreck; natural disasters sweeping whole communities away; the ever-evolving threat of disease; changing attitudes to old age; exhortations to suicide; the perfect playlist for a funeral; and the thorny question of what happens after the fat lady ceases to sing. Which means that for every "Black Angel's Death Song" there is a "Candle in the Wind," and for every "Cop Killer" there is "The Living Years." Death, like music, is a unifying force. There is something for every taste and inclination, from murderous vengeance to camp sentimentality and everything in between.

Drawing upon original and unique interviews with artists such as Mick Jagger, Richard Thompson, Ice-T, Will Oldham and Neil Finn among many others, I Shot a Man In Reno explores how popular music deals with death, and how it documents the changing reality of what death means as one grows older. It's as transfixing as a train wreck, and you won't be able to put it down. as an epilogue, I Shot A Man In Reno presents the reader with the 40 greatest death songs of all time, complete with a brief rationale for each, acting as a primer for the morbidly curious listener.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826428578
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/15/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Graeme Thomson is a regular contributor to "The Word, "the" Observer, Time Out, "the" Herald "and the "Sunday Herald. "He is the author of "Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello "(Canongate, 2004) and "Willie Nelson: The Outlaw" (Virgin Books, 2006). He lives in Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Death Ain't Nothin' New: From 'John Barleycorn' to 'John Walker's Blues'

2. Teenage Wildlife: From Sob to Suicide

3. Blood on the Floor: Music, Murder and Morality

4. How Does It Feel?: Death in the Sixties

5. Appetite for Self-Destruction: Oblivion Songs

6. Sweetness Follows?: Into the Great Beyond

7. Gangsta Gangsta: Rap Reclaims the Murder Song

8. Sometimes It Snows in April: The Music of Loss

9. Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Fat Lady's Songbook

10. The Art of Dying (Slight Return)
Epilogue: To Die For


The 40 Greatest Death Records

Notes on Sources

Selected Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Compelling...Divided into chapters covering everything from the common teenage penchant for suicide songs to the evolution of murder ballads and gangsta rap, Thomson displays considerable knowledge of music past and present.
Publishers Weekly

Over the course of this thoughtful essay, Thomson... is a surefooted guide through the musical graveyard. His writing is never dry or academic, but he smartly puts each song into its sociological and psychological context. It's fascinating to see how concepts of death changed over the decades, as Thomson points out trends such as the explosion of death songs during the psychedelic era.... He makes excellent use of quotes from some A-list songwriters; he interviewed Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Will Oldham and Nick Cave, and he draws on other sources for remarks from other musicians..... At first, it may seem puzzling that songs on this grim topic have become hits and even popular standards, but Thomson persuasively shows that death very much belongs in pop music.
Signal To Noise

Rock songs...are as much about death as they are about love, argues Greame Thomson in his brilliant I Shot a Man In Reno.
ForeWord

From the Publisher

Death in popular song comes in all shapes and sizes, but Thomson (Willie Nelson: The Outlaw) skids wildly from one genre and artist to another without pausing to draw larger conclusions. Divided into chapters covering everything from the common teenage penchant for suicide songs to the evolution of murder ballads and gangsta rap, Thomson displays considerable knowledge of music past and present, but his conclusions are often less than profound: death as a "hallmark of teen rebellion" (think James Dean); the Doors' "The End" signifying the late 1960s, Vietnam and "a world defined by death." In his most compelling section, entitled "Sweetness Follows: Into the Great Beyond" (from the R.E.M. songs of the same names), Thomson explores musicians' approach not to death itself, or even the journey toward it, but to what happens next. Though Thomson admits in the introduction that more death songs will be omitted than included, frustrated readers may wish he had taken his own advice and culled his examples to support a focused thesis. (Aug. 31)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly