New book offers a fun view on your favourite songs

Featuring a collection of lists about the music that makes up the soundtrack to our lives

From rockers to ravers, The Illustrated Book of Songs is the book every music lover will want. In quick-witted style, Irish writer Colm Boyd navigates us through lists of classic songs for every occasion. Prepare yourself for fascinating facts, cool illustrations and withering commentary on songs presented in lists such as:

Songs about Getting Dumped
Songs about Prostitution
Songs about Environmental Matters
Songs about Being a Complete and Utter Asshole
Songs about Gender Identity
Alternative Christmas Songs

The Illustrated Book of Songs features 70 lists, discussing hundreds of songs from different genres and artists - from Adele to Aretha, Jagger to Jarvis, Rufus to Rosalía. Many of the songs are well-known, others are a little more off-radar. Some have amazing musicality, some have lyrics – quite literally – worthy of a Nobel Prize. Some deal with death, others deal with zebras, one song deals with prostitute-frequenting chess players in Bangkok. You get the idea.

The thing that links all the songs in this book is that, for one reason or another, they each harbour a fascinating story. You will gasp, you will probably weep, and you will most definitely laugh. The Illustrated Book of Songs seeks to answer life’s big questions. Who really is Sharona? Was Blur’s Song 2 all just a joke that backfired? And might Paul Simon really have written The Sound of Silence while sitting on the john?

Each of the book’s lists is accompanied by a scannable Spotify code, allowing readers to use their smartphones to directly access the songs mentioned. So, time to get reading and get listening.

Check out the book’s website for more information: colmboyd.com/the-illustrated-book-of-songs.

About the author

Colm Boyd is a freelance writer from County Cork (Ireland) who has been based in Barcelona since 2003. He writes for a range of corporate clients, as well as for various educational publishers such as Macmillan. Colm also runs his own blog (picnicenglish.com), where he writes about language and new music releases. The Illustrated Book of Songs is his first book. The wonderful illustrations that add to the unique look of this book are by Patricia Ghijsens-Ezcurdia; with graphic design by Herman Houbrechts – Beeldzorg.