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Your Song Changed My Life
Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It | Bob Boilen
From the beloved host and creator of NPRs All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians, including Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe, Carrie Brownstein, Smokey Robinson, and Jeff Tweedy, among otherspublished in association with NPR Music. Is there a unforgettable song that changed your life? NPRs renowned music authority Bob Boilen posed this question to some of todays best-loved musical legends and rising stars. In Your Song Changed My Life, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), St. Vincent, Jnsi (Sigur Rs), Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Cat Power, David Byrne (Talking Heads), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Jenny Lewis, Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia, Sleater-Kinney), Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Jackson Browne, Valerie June, Philip Glass, James Blake, and other artists reflect on pivotal moments that inspired their work. For Wilcos Jeff Tweedy, it was discovering his sisters 45 of The Byrds Turn, Turn, Turn. A young St. Vincents life changed the day a box of CDs literally fell off a delivery truck in front of her house. Cat Stevens was transformed when he heard John Lennon cover Twist and Shout. These are the momentous yet unmarked events that have shaped these and many other musical talents, and ultimately the sound of modern music. A diverse collection of personal experiences, both ordinary and extraordinary, Your Song Changed My Life illustrates the ways in which music is revived, restored, and revolutionized. It is also a testament to the power of music in our lives, and an inspiration for future artists and music lovers. Amazing contributors include: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Portlandia, Wild Flag), Smokey Robinson, David Byrne (Talking Heads), St. Vincent, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), James Blake, Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Sturgill Simpson, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Cat Power, Jackson Browne, Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Philip Glass, Jnsi (Sigur Rs), Hozier, Regina Carter, Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes, and others), Courtney Barnett, Chris Thile (Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers), Leon Bridges, Sharon Van Etten, and many more.
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MinDea
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Sitting here watching #TheGreatAmericanRead (thanks @That-Bookish-Hiker for posting about it!) and now I am wondering ---

What Book Changed Your Life?

Dragon The book and the movie. Atticus Finch is my inspiration. 7y
HighLadyoftheStacks Heart of Darkness made me want to be an English major and Paradise Lost proved it‘s worth it to read difficult texts. There are too many to list to be honest. 7y
cobwebmoth The Lord of the Rings. It was the first epic fantasy I read. It showed me that I had an escape from reality, that I could become fully immersed in another world. Also, it's what Nathan and I bonded over when we met.😊 7y
See All 24 Comments
MinDea I love that @cobwebmoth! That's so awesome! 💙💙 I also really loved The Lord of the Rings. It definitely is an epic fantasy 7y
MinDea @Dragon Yes I remember really enjoying To Kill A Mockingbird. I have been wanting a re read of it! 7y
MinDea @HighLadyoftheStacks I have not heard of either of those books! 7y
RainyDayReading I feel like such a fake reader when I say Harry Potter...but it‘s true. My Mom would read it to me before bed when I was younger. Dad went to the special midnight releases and brought me home the final two books as a surprise and it‘s the series I bonded with a lot of my current friends over. I have a lot of great memories with that series. I also adore LOTR-definitely shaped my teen/early 20s. 7y
MinDea @RainyDayReading that's not fake. Actually it is the opposite. It is so honest. I loved Harry Potter. I don't think I ever missed characters as much as I missed Harry, Ron and Hermione when the last book came out and I read the last page. I just instantly missed them. 🤗🤗🤗 7y
JenlovesJT47 GWTW. It opened me up to the world of classic movies. I finished the book in a week during high school, then just HAD to see the movie ASAP, and I fell in love with Old Hollywood. ❤️ 7y
Ddzmini Flow: the psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and The Quantum Self: human nature and consciousness defined by the new physics by Danah Zohar 7y
Ddzmini On the lighter side Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson 😋📖 7y
Chrissyreadit The Bone People by Keri Hulme was a book that changed how I viewed people and families. I‘m still not sure why that particular book but it opened my eyes to complexities I had never known before. And The Winds Of War - my dad handed it to me in elementary school and it was a book we completely bonded over. 7y
RohitSawant Four Past Midnight by Stephen King and Wuthering Heights! 7y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I have to go way back. For me it‘s all the children‘s books of my childhood. What would have happened if my parents hadn‘t read to me? From Goodnight Moon to Charlotte‘s Web, they all made me a reader. I wouldn‘t be the same without them. 7y
Johanna414 I was a good reader as a child but everything we read in school was SOOOO BORING. Then my mom went back to school and took a children‘s lit class and passed along all those books. So I‘m 3rd grade I read A Wrinkle in Time and immediately became A Reader. After that book I read everything I could get my hands on 7y
MeganAnn There are many from my childhood, but what I think had the most impact on who I am today is the Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton. I found this series my first year of college when I was on my own for the first time and trying to figure out who I was. Anita was a strong heroine with strong beliefs. She taught me so much about finding how to be myself and to find what I believed in and do something about it. 7y
alysonimagines So many books from my childhood. But the ones that really inspired me to be a writer were all the fairy tales and fantasy novels people gave me as gifts. I wanted to experience the thrill of creating my own worlds with my own magical imagination. If I had to name a title? The Chronicles of Narnia series. And the Wizard of Oz series as a close tie (a lot of people don‘t know it‘s a series, not just one book). 7y
MinDea @alysonwrites I am currently reading Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. I am half way done with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I am hoping to get my hands on a full set of The Wizard of Oz. I would love to read that series! 7y
alysonimagines @MinDea Yaaay!! Hope you enjoy your travels in Narnia. 😊🦄✨ The Oz books are whimsical fun. 7y
lovintoread Been reading books for so long not sure which books changed my life. The one that had a strong impact on me was the memoir of “Backstairs at the White House” 7y
goodbyefrancie A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Matilda are the books that entered my heart and brain and have never left. The Little House books (and my aunt) made me a reader. 6y
74 likes24 comments
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mariaku21
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I loved this book. Boilen has asked some of my fave musicians a question that I've always wanted answer and not a single answer disappointed me. There's a lot of history, general music history, provided by Boilen in between the interviews which keeps it interesting.
The chapters with Carrie Brownstein, Lucinda Williams and Leon Bridges were my favorites

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haileybean
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Going to my dad for Father's Day because he tried to steal my copy. So I got him his own.

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WilliamMorrowBooks
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Today's Staff Pick Sunday is from our great marketing assistant, Lauren! She's choosing YOUR SONG CHANGED MY LIFE by Bob Boilen.

"Music and literature have always been interchangeable pieces of my life, so I was thrilled when we published Bob Boilen's book. It offered me a vantage point on such personal memories from some of my favorite artists and I can't recommend it enough."

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balletbookworm
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Fun, sometimes moving set of interviews/commentary with famous musicians conducted by Bob Boilen of All Things Considered. Ended with the Fantastic Negrito, the 2014 Tiny Desk Contest winner, who has an amazing personal story.

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jessicarenee
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Some break time reading. This book is awesome so far--I always love reading about music (written by the guy who does the Tiny Desk Concerts on NPR)

11 likes5 stack adds