A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
Ben Folds is an internationally celebrated musician, singer-songwriter and former front man of the alternative rock band, Ben Folds Five, beloved for songs such as 'Brick', 'You Don't Know Me', 'Rockin' the Suburbs' and 'The Luckiest'. In A Dream About Lightning Bugs Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming, funny and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. He opens up about finding his voice as a musician, becoming a rock anti-hero, and hauling a baby grand piano on and off stage for every performance. From growing up in working class North Carolina childhood amid the race and class tensions that shaped his early songwriting to painful life lessons he learned the hard way, he also ruminates on music in the digital age, the absurdity of life on the road, and the challenges of sustaining a multi-decade, multi-faceted career in the music business. A Dream About Lightning Bugs embodies what Folds has been singing about for years: Smile like you've got nothing to prove, because it hurts to grow up, and life flies by in seconds. 'As a fan and a musician, this is truly a gift.' Jamie Cullum
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★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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So what about the middle-aged making pop music? Sure, it's allowed. But let's be honest about what pop, or popular, music is. It's music for the mating age. It's a soundtrack for that yearning, that youthful anger, those ideals and inside jokes of the teenagers and young adults as they experience the rough ride together. It fills an an important need. It help us get through to adulthood. Pop music can be a life jacket, a sexy security blanket, a hipster Hallmark card. And it communicates very real things. It also requires serious craft and is a competitive business, worthy of great respect. Pop music saved my ass as a kid, paid the bills in my earlier career. And I love to make fun of it.
A DREAM ABOUT LIGHTNING BUGS
Rockin' the Suburbs
A DREAM ABOUT LIGHTNING BUGS
flew
I've always loved Folds's music so this is a memoir I've been meaning to check out for a minute. The audio was a truly enjoyable listen, mostly because Folds was the reader and many parts of it had piano accompaniant.