When Words Fail: A Life with Music, War and Peace

The sound of ‘Wichita Lineman’ was the sound of ecstatic solitude, but then its hero was the quintessential loner. What a great metaphor he was: a man who needed a woman more than he actually wanted her. Written in 1968 by Jimmy Webb, ‘Wichita Lineman’ is the first philosophical country song: a heartbreaking torch ballad […]

How Music Works is David Byrne’s buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about. Equal parts historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist…..

We arrived in a fleet of white stretch limos at a clearing in a wood near Woking. Here the K Foundation was exhibiting a million pounds in cash, while Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty circled the perimeter in two orange Saracen armoured vehicles, blasting out Abba’s ‘Money Money Money’ . . . The list of […]

Bob Stanley is a music writer and a founder member of Saint Etienne the three piece who emerged with the classic album Foxbase Alpha in 1991, and went on to become one of the best loved British groups of their generation. Here, he writes about the influences and impulses behind his own songwriting. Includes photographs by […]