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This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days

This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days

by John Darnielle; John Keogh

MCD ·2025 ·539 pages
New Release
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
I Index
77/99
Near the Top

71/99

Critics' Rating Index

Top of the Pile

83/99

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Scholars' Citation Index

15/99

Volume of Reviews

36/99

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About This Book

The complete song lyrics of one of music's most visionary bards, John Darnielle. A work of rapturous beauty, This Year: 365 Songs Annotated celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of John Darnielle through his most meaningful songs. From his early days recording on a boom box, through the evolution of the Mountain Goats from a solo project to a full band, to his continued influence on indie music, This Year pairs the definitive texts of 365 John Darnielle songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired his family and friends; his wife, Lalitree Darnielle; his longtime collaborator, Peter Hughes; and even his literary heroes, among many others. Here are the origins of "This Year," "No Children," "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton," and "Up the Wolves," as well as Darnielle's literary influences, including Flannery O'Connor, Jorge Luis Borges, and Stephen King. This Year, spanning decades, becomes the definitive literary record of one of the greatest songwriters and musical creative forces of all time.


Reviews

"It is a compendium of three decades' worth of strange, startling, funny and often beautiful lyrics, each set accompanied by some sort of note or riff or explanation, each corresponding to a day of the year ..."

Becca Rothfeld· The Washington Post Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"The book offers a look into Darnielle's inspiration and songwriting process, and the result is even more impressive than one might expect."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"These entries unfold as essayistic meditations on the creative process, artistic influences, biography, and recurring themes—classical mythology, baseball, religion, divorce, and friendship."

Freda Love Smith· Booklist Read review ↗ Near the Top

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