From Back Cover
“Indispensable, stellar new anthology. This eclectic book provides
enough humor, romance and sophistication to make you forget that
Seussical even existed.”
–Jason Zinoman, Time Out New York
“This music is an amazing art form; it’s a substantial cultural
phenomenon.”
–Newsweek
“’Reading Lyrics’ is both a groundbreaking social document and
its own pleasure dome. Its seven hundred and six pages confirm the
accomplishments of the greats, but they also provide
surprises.”
–The New Yorker
“America was the laboratory that proved Plato’s contention that
songs are ‘spells for souls for the creation of concord.’ If you
read between the lines of many of the lyrics in the anthology, you
hear an alarmed society calming its frazzled nerves.”
–The New Yorker
“[‘Reading Lyrics’] defies literary categorization. It’s
reference work. It’s a singalong book. . . It’s a shadow history of
taste and mores over much of the past century. It’s a valentine to
a now-vanished artistic craft. And it’s an act of fond
provocation.”
–The Boston Globe
“’Reading Lyrics’ demonstrates one of the may magic tricks that
words can do: the way that letters and lines on a page can (with
years of practice) learn how to carry a tune.”
–Elle
“With around 170 lyricists on offer, the book makes its share of
worthwhile rediscoveries. . . . That’s the fun of ‘Reading Lyrics.’
Readers can hum along with songs they know, while songs they don’t
will have them hurrying off to the nearest music megastore.”
–New York Times Book Review
“Sparklingly entertaining, ‘Reading Lyrics’ exalts the lyrical
sublimity of such cunning wordsmiths as Porter, Gershwin, and
Coward.”
–Vanity Fair
“Tuneless, but what joy! . . . . For no sooner do the lyrics
appear before one’s eyes than reading gives way to song.”
–Billboard Magazine
“This wondrous and magical concoction is highly
recommended.”
–Wall Street Journal
“This is one of the finest collections of words there is. To
quote P.G. Wodehouse. . . ‘And I wish someday I could find my wayTo
the land where the good songs go.’ That land is Reading Lyrics. ‘S
wonderful.”
–Newsday
From Booklist
~Most people remember a song better than they remember a poem.
During the 1900^-75 scope of this sterling anthology, remembering a
song was remembering a poem. That span was the heyday of the
classic American popular song, which re-expressed all the old
emotions in language invigorated by the dialects of all the
external and internal immigrants drawn to America's burgeoning
industrial centers. The typical classic American popular song--any
of the 1,000-plus examples editors Gottlieb and Kimball have
chosen--is rife with those pnemonic aids par excellence, rhyme and
wordplay. Accordingly, you could use the book for a party game, the
object of which would be seeing who recalls the most songs and,
beyond that, can sing them. With lyricists including all the
superstars, from Cohan to Sondheim, and plenty whose songs' fame
have outlived that of their names, such as Haven Gillespie ("Santa
Claus Is Comin' to Town") and Edward Eliscu ("Without a Song"), the
party could take all of a grand night for singing. Oh!--get a copy
for the reference desk, too. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights
reserved~