Your Song Changed My Life

Your Song Changed My Life by Bob Boilen, 282 pages

As host of NPR's All Songs Considered, Bob Boilen has talked to a TON of musicians. In Your Song Changed My Life, he talks to just 35, asking them to pinpoint the one song that changed their life. Some of the results are surprising (I didn't think R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe was that into manufactured pop of the 1960s, and I never would have guessed that Trey Anastasio was such a fan of West Side Story), many of them aren't.

What makes the book interesting, however, are the stories behind the songs, and the connections between those songs and the music each performer eventually made. Boilen scatters mini-biographies of the artists throughout their musical discussions, as well as plenty of anecdotes about his own experiences with music. I'm not a die-hard fan of too many of the musicians Boilen talks to in this book (and, in my opinion, way too many people cite something by Bob Dylan as THE song), but, to quote the Stones, "you can't always get what you want." It's still a good and interesting book, particularly if you like music and musical influences.