Put Another Dime in the Jukebox…
Apparently U2 almost called The Joshua Tree, “The Two Americas.” Does Son of a Mill Worker Edwards know about this?
And so goes Book #3, an excellent compilation of highly useful music anecdotes and trivia written by a fellow Oregonian. Okay, I suppose it’s highly useful if you talk about music for a living, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. I read it in one bus ride up to Germany and used a choice Christopher Cross tidbit the very next day.
Yes, Christopher Cross. I don’t make the requests, I just play them.
“Fun fact: 75 percent of classic rock songs are about Pattie Boyd.” This I knew thanks to St. Klosterman, but Boone’s one liners made it feel fresh. “Boyd has yet to remarry, but when she does it’ll probably be to one of the Kinks, the only major ’60s British rock band her mystique didn’t infiltrate.”
And this sentence made me wish I’d written it. “He was in the original cast of the beloved HIV minstrel show Rent.” Correct. Not politically, certainly — but pithy and accurate. That’s what good writing is, for my money. Grabbing, succinct, and original. (With a tiny bit of “Did you really just say that?”)
Up next: Nërd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A true story of faking it in hair metal LA. They had me at the Rock Dots.
(Oooh. And this would have been Book #4, as I’m halfway through another one but the magic electrical library zapped it back before I finished and now I have to WAIT for it to be available again. Paper: 1; Magic: Dang it.)
