Origins of a Song: 202 true inspirations behind the world's greatest lyrics

by Thomas Nelson

David Bowie, tired of the rock 'n roll Los Angeles lifestyle, picks up and moves to West Berlin.

Sixteen-year-old Rod Stewart sneaks into a music festival and has a coming-of-age experience.

Paul McCartney dreams of his deceased mother.

The rest is music history.

For lyricists and listeners alike, Origins of a Song is the inspiring collection of 202 true stories behind the world’s greatest lyrics.

Delve into the compelling real-life stories behind the world’s greatest lyrics with Origins of a Song . Featuring profiles of 202 musical masterpieces that span genres and generations, this book explores the inspiration and creative process behind each song. Get glimpses into the inception of these timeless tunes, and learn about the individual creative process for these songwriters and musicians. Origins of a Song will not only leave you with a different perspective on your favorite songs, but it will also have you inspired to start crafting some yourself!

Author Jake Grogan is originally from Ellenville, New York, and currently resides in Queens. He has a BA from Fordham University, where he studied journalism. The story behind his favorite song, "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, inspired him to pursue Origins of a Song .

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Pop Culture

336 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2018

Reviews

[Barry Hammond · Rating 3 out of 5]

The songs they give the stories behind cover a wide range from classic pop and rock songs to rap, heavy metal, teen anthems, song-writing classics to flavour-of-the-month disco tracks. Not every story will appeal to every reader but it's the kind of book you're really meant to jump around in until you find something that interests you. If you've read a lot of music magazines, watch a lot of interview shows or read books about musicians you may have heard some of the stories before as the contents is all gleaned from these other sources but for an interested beginner it gives short, interesting blurbs about each song. Good travel reading or magazine style reading where you don't want to get deeply involved in one thing. - BH.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read. I felt some of the entries missed really important or interesting points and I’m certain there were songs not covered whose stories are even more interesting than some of the songs in the book. That said, the book covered many genres. Most importantly, it compelled me to listen to songs and research them further, so that earned a bonus star.

[Trea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish I could have picked the songs. 😜

[Jay Clement · Rating 4 out of 5]

20-2021. A charming and slim little book with short discussions and interviews regarding, well, the Origins of some 200 Songs. Some fun stories, and it’s always amusing to see how many times the story ends with “...and ten minutes later, it was finished.” Like it’s nothing to write a jillion-selling song. :-)

[Aubrey Braddock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of this stuff was fascinating, other descriptions really didn’t tell you anything except a funny story about the band/person who sang the song.

[J.J. Lair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this book because I knew almost all these songs. The book does have song new facts. Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al makes more sense to me.I always wondered about some of those lyrics and what the point was. Some songs that sound like cliches have more meaning. There are some songs where the author talks more production than first inspiration.
The author says Jailhouse Rock was written in 1957 but not released until 1960, not true. Grogan also has conflicting origins about "I Shot the Sheriff."
All in all, it was an easy read with some interesting stories some old news.

[McKenna White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while listening to each song as I read about it. It felt exactly like a documentary, reading about the artist’s thoughts and motives behind their hit songs. There is a range of music genres throughout the book, so that keeps it pretty interesting. I’m always looking for what inspired the lyrics of a song, so this book was fascinating to me. I wish it was a little more in depth on some songs, but overall it was entertaining and full of fun facts.

[Brian O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the author did was look up songs on the internet and repeat to us what he found there, he did not do any of his own research with real people. I could have gotten this information on each song just by google searching the song. Also, too many of the songs had really no information about the origins of the song.

[p · Rating 4 out of 5]

I impulse bought this in the bargain section at B&N years ago lol. I enjoyed it — was definitely expecting more than just … like notes from other media sources and journalists? But I liked learning about the songs I knew about (skimmed over the ones i didnt lol). I also felt like it was a great balance between old and newer songs, which most book like this usually arent.

[Gabriela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t a poorly written book at all. Each song’s story was told in great detail and it was an enjoyable read in regards to structure. However, I just personally didn’t care for more than half of these songs lol. But I’d still recommend this book to others. I think the stories are worth reading about. I wish there was a modern version of this book. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like its counterpart, Origins of a Story has short 1-2 page stories behind popular songs. I enjoyed it, although I admit to skipping some songs I wasn't familiar with.

[Del Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a really interesting book. Lots of little tidbits of information about the artists and their songs.

[The_J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting Musical Romp, even if burdened with only occasional insight into the music

[Peter Hollywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh

[Lisa Brewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checked this one out from Wilkes County Public Library and took it on vacation with me. Had been dipping in and out of it prior to traveling. And that's what I recommend; for me, it wasn't a read-straight-through kind of book. It really appealed to me because of my love of music and my love and respect for all the songwriters I know and those I wish I knew. Getting the story behind a burst of creativity intrigues me. Making something out of nothing fascinates me. And hard work inspires me.

[justin vandertuin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the stories of how songs came to be. I do wish the stories were a little more in-depth.

[Tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a huge fan of music, of course this book caught my attention. Unfortunately, I found it to not be very well written. It's mostly just a compilation of quotes from interviews, which is fine, but the author doesn't really add much to those quotes. Because the book is mostly quotes from interviews, the quality of the writing varies a lot. I'm not sure how the author chose which songs to include, but I feel like some of the entries didn't have much to say. Some of the songs, like Heroes by David Bowie, have genuinely interesting stories behind them. However, others are just a short paragraph of a quote from the songwriter saying something like, "uhhh yeah, we got in the studio and wrote this cool thing and ummm.. it was pretty great I guess." I'm sort of hovering between 2 and 3 stars for this one, because I did learn a few new interesting facts about songs I like, but I feel like the format of the book was pretty rough. I'll give it a 2.5.