Signs of Times: A Music Anthology with Lyric Analysis

TThis book’s subtitle is the literal content of this book: A Music Anthology with Lyric Analysis of twentieth century popular music. More specifically, the author chose his top-15 favorite musicians: Bryan Adams, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson, Sting, Bono, Roger Waters, Freddie Mercury, Mark Knopfler, Don Henley, Michael Stipes, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, and Bruce Springsteen. For each of them he analyzed the lyrics of one of their best songs. This analysis unveils a period of explosive musical innovation (in strong contrast to the garbage that today’s scratching DJ’s come up with) combined with an equally implosive moral decadence. It is only too bad that this decadence is not natural, but atonally orchestrated.