My top 10 music books

Jarvis Cocker has written about his top 10 music books for the Guardian. So I thought I'd write about mine.

Elvis Presley has left the building

The NME was right when it put ‘Remember him this way’ on their cover the week Elvis died. I was wrong when I thought the Clash were cool and prophetic. ‘No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977.’

The world would be no poorer without the Rolling Stones, and I could happily live without ever hearing the Beatles again. But Elvis’s death was a loss.

In the end, the Clash had to own up to their debt to Elvis (and there aren’t many musicians who don’t have one). At least, they allowed a homage in Ray Lowry’s album cover design for London Calling, based on an Elvis LP sleeve. (There’s loads of pop trivia where this came from, fact fans. You’re reading someone who once beat a Mastermind contender on ‘punk rock in the 1970s’. Without even revising.)

The new rock'n'roll is... rock'n'roll

A few years ago, at a better than usual works Christmas do, we were asked to write down our top ten Desert Island Discs as a party game – then guess which list belonged to who. I was mortified when someone put my name next to the list that included Joan Armatrading. Mine was the one with Elvis, T Rex and the Clash.

It’s strange how much your sense of self is wrapped up in the music you care about. And I mean ‘care about’. Not just ‘like’. I thought I’d grown out of all that. I was wrong. It’s nothing to do with trying to impress, or nostalgia, or even the soundtrack of my life. (I was in nappies when much of the music I love was being made.) It’s about what makes you feel alive. And what makes you feel alive isn’t necessarily the same for the next person.

For a while, I’d forgotten what that felt like. Then I heard something on Mark Lamarr’s Redneck Music that woke me up. It was probably nonsense. It was almost certainly primitive. (Both are, of course, two of the criteria for the best rock’n’roll.) It made me laugh with joy. And again, more recently, I was watching Later with Jools Holland: normally last bastion of the boring muso, but suddenly good again. And I heard Glasvegas and hung onto every note.

I realised I hadn’t stoppped caring about music. I’d just been listening to the wrong sort of music, and thought I didn’t care any more. There’s the music I used to like, and think I ought to like now because it meant something to me once. There’s the music I used to like and would like still. Except it makes me feel the way I felt the first time I heard it. And I really don’t want to be 15 again. There’s the music I like because it’s the sort of music I like. And the music I like because I know quality when I hear it. That’s what happens when you get middle-aged. And then there’s the stuff that makes you feel alive. It doesn’t have to be ‘quality’. It doesn’t have to be approved by anyone else. It just has to connect. That’s what’s worth caring about. That’s worth forgetting how old you are.

Welcome to the Older than Elvis Hall of Fame

Happy birthday Pete Wylie.
Pete has to qualify for the Older than Elvis Hall of Fame:

• for releasing his masterpiece after the age of 40.
• for being, in the words of Julian Cope, ‘the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met’.
• for a Kerouac-scale level of self-mythologising.
• for being older than Elvis... and still being himself.

You are what you eat

Seen at my local farmers’ market this morning: ‘Squirrels. £4. May contain nuts.’

I thought it was an early April fool’s joke, but the bloke said he shot them himself.

I was almost tempted to buy one. After all, according to Arena, squirrel is supposed to be one of the things Elvis ate when he was young and poor.

Woke up this morning, I was older than Elvis

‘Woke up this morning, I was older than Elvis.’ Is it just me or is that a great first line for a song? Yes, you get the blues when you realise you’re not young any more.

I’ve never been able to write songs so I’m writing this instead.

I’ve been wondering what I would say if someone asked what my blog was about and came up with the following:

• How to stay hip when you are in your 40s, and whether it’s actually a good idea anyway.
• or, if I’m feeling pretentious: The cultural implications of approaching middle age.
• or, if I’m being really honest: What the hell is happening to me?

Elvis was the hippest person who ever lived. Well, maybe not all the time, but that doesn’t matter. It never bothered me when I passed the age Marilyn died (I’m not even sure what age that was) because I never identified with her. Maybe it’s because I was born when one of his songs was number one, but I always wanted to be Elvis Presley.

The problem is, when you’re older than Elvis, you can’t ask yourself ‘what would Elvis do?’. Because he never was 44. You’ve got to work it out for yourself. It’s one of the things this blog will be about. There might be others. I’ll see how it goes.