Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock N Roll Music: Sixth Edition Free

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FREE MYSTERY TRAIN: IMAGES OF AMERICA IN ROCK N ROLL MUSIC: SIXTH EDITION PDF

Founding rolling stone writer Greil Marcus is what you'd describe, were you English and of a certain age, as an "Anorak". He's an obsessive, passionate, academic lover of rock 'n' roll in all its many forms. Here he sketches out a book structured in a loose fashion like the bible, in that it has an "old testament" surveying two of rock's 'ancestors' and a "new testament" on five of their 'inheritors'. It's a book about rock 'n' roll. In short, Marcus waxes long and with great hyperbole on things which most grown ups in this day and age find rather trifling. Well, I don't, and I think this is a fantastic book. It's subjects are eclectic as can be: Robert Johnson is a reasonable enough choice for "ancestor of the rock 'n' roll tradition" but it would be a brave man who would pick one-man band "Harmonica Frank" Floyd, from Toccopola Mississippi, as the other. But Marcus does, and creates a fascinating case for his inclusion. The threads he picks up of rock iconography are incredible - the myth of Stagger Lee, blended into the history of Sly Stone was something I'd never heard of, but it prompted me to head off in that direction and see what I could find. Likewise the short chapter on Robert Johnson. In a lot of ways, that's the beauty of this book: For all its obsession-shot prose, it functions as a bunch of references; directions which the reader can follow up at leisure, and Marcus's effervescent writing style functions like a firm push between the shoulder blades. The bibliography is almost as long as the text, and it's well worth the read. There are some who find Marcus' style too garish, and there is a view that he is too much of a boffin - an anorak, if you will - for his own good. I don't agree with that - Marcus is self-aware enough to see the funny side of himself and his subject matter, and he is always so enthusiastic that it isn't fair to say he misses the point, or the energy, of what he's writing about. Marcus' later work, especially on punk rock, is well worth investigating too. Don't believe the nay-sayers who don't like his "straying" into punk: "In the Fascist Bathroom", Marcus' anthology of essays on punk rock is one of the funniest, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition compelling reads I've had in a long while. This is history, social commentary and musical criticism in one great collection. Even if you're not a rock-history-geek, it's a worthwhile read. Marcus tried to do something interesting here, commenting on rock music as an expression of American history, society and culture. For me, he doesn't quite achieve it but he succeeds in discussing rock music and at least in placing it in a cultural context. 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Looking at recordings by six key artists--Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley--Marcus offers a complex and unprecedented analysis of the relationship between rock 'n' roll and American culture. In this latest edition, Marcus provides an extensively updated and rewritten Note and Discographies section, exploring the recordings' evolution and continuing impact. About This Item. We aim to show you accurate product information. Manufacturers, suppliers and others provide what you see here, and we have not verified it. See our disclaimer. InGreil Marcus's Mystery Train changed the way readers thought about rock 'n' roll and continues to be sought out today by music fans and anyone interested in pop culture. Specifications Publisher Penguin Publishing Group. Write a review See all reviews Write a review. Average Rating: 5. September 30, See more. Reviewed by ElectricRay ElectricRay. Written by a librarything. Average Rating: 4. 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There's no clear thesis despite the subtitle of the bookleading his analysis into strange digressions that he lazily attempts to connect to the artists: the biggest disappointment is the Sly Stone section, which could have lost the entire Stagger Lee component and still been a decent portrayal of black American's trying to find an identity in the early s. The section on The Band nearly dispenses with any analysis after a few pages and instead traces how disappointed Marcus became with them after their 2nd album. The prose is tepid, refusing to delve into a deep critical analysis of the artists while neglecting any autobiographical elements that could shed light on the author's opinions. Marcus wants it both ways: His only support for the importance of these artists is their popularity though Elvis was the only one to achieve a long- lasting version of it and his own opinion of them; Billboard chart positions and record sales can support the former, but we aren't left with much to support the latter. The discography section which is about the same length as all of the preceding essays does a better job of tracing the lineage of American music, though entire pages are simply a list of every version of "Stagger Lee" that Marcus could find. If you are interested in the musicians listed on the cover Elvis, Sly Stone, The Band, Randy Newmanconsider a separate biography about them. This isn't about rock 'n' roll as much as it as about how Greil Marcus sees rock 'n' roll. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Mystery Train by Greil Marcus. When it was first published, critic after critic called this brilliant study of rock 'n' roll and American culture the best book on the subject. Now, firmly established as a classic, the fourth edition features a completely new introduction as well as an entirely updated discography that includes CDs for the first time. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published May 1st by Plume first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Mystery Trainplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jul 30, Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing Shelves: musician-biofavoritesrock-n-rollnon-fictionamericanth-c. This is a masterpiece from Greil Marcus about what makes American rock-n-roll such a special beast. It focuses on the origins of rock music in the blues and then profiles four completely different artists: Elvis, The Band, Sly and the Family Stone and Randy Newman. It also includes a kickass discography to go back and listen to the music he discusses. I was blown away by the original Sun sessions of Elvis and grew an entirely new appreciation of Bob Dylan's work with The Band, Sly Stone's music This is a masterpiece from Greil Marcus about what makes American rock-n-roll such a special beast. I was blown away by the original Sun sessions of Elvis and grew an entirely new appreciation of Bob Dylan's work with The Band, Sly Stone's music as well as that of Mr. I Love LA. It is a must read for fans of rock music and a magnificent testimony to the art behind the legends as well as the ethos behind the music. Sep 09, Paul Bryant rated it really liked it Shelves: popular-and-unpopular-music. Pretty much the big bang for those who like to plug their music collection into their book collection and let the two comingle, cohabit, collude and co-depend. Yes, I agree, Greil Marcus is a waffling, grating self-parody of a ta Pretty much the big bang for those Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition like to plug their music collection into their book collection and let the two comingle, cohabit, collude and co-depend. Yes, I agree, Greil Marcus is a waffling, grating self-parody of a tall-foreheaded fierce rock crit whose favourite obsessions are painfully predictable Robert Johnson, Randy Newman, Elvis for starters. His later books you would have to pay me in unmarked bills to read, but this one was very cool for its time and the time I read Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition, so hey Greil, you may be male and oh so pale but this wasn't a fail. View 2 comments. I hope one day to follow in Marcus' footsteps. He combines or better to say assimiliates varying traditions and social forces within American history and popular culture, beginning with an artist, a moment, a tone, a mood, an instance and expanding it outward into larger and more elegant circles of reference and obscure historical connection until we get a sort of folk gestalt, an x-ray if you will, of another seemingly endless angle on the American consciousness, which is expe wonderful book. He combines or better to say assimiliates varying traditions and social forces within American history and popular culture, beginning with an artist, a moment, a tone, a mood, an instance and expanding it outward into larger and more elegant circles of reference and obscure historical connection until we get a sort of folk gestalt, an x-ray if you will, of another seemingly endless angle on the American consciousness, which is experiemntal to the bone. If you're going to talk about rock and roll, you've got to confront the obscure. A whole chapter on Harmonica Frank? I'm pretty well-versed in rock n roll and I've never so much as heard of him. But Marcus makes him come alive. The chapter on Staggerlee- the man, the myth, the legend is absolutely essential, I think, to getting at the heart of a certain kind of American poetry in this case, a folk ballad and American violence bad man, cruel Stagolee It has been fairly said of Marcus that "everything reminds him of everything else" If this sounds sort of like what one of his blurbs says of him: 'Marcus writes criticism like Dylan writes songs' then this just well be the book for you. I think you can take quite a bit from the nature of the blurbs on a book jacket, their number and tone and the who and the where, but that's another issue altogether The drawback as such to a book like this is that it does contain an extensive almost larger than the main course itself! This can be enthralling if you're a fan or scholar of the artist in question- I was actually pretty riveted to his discussion of Robert Johnson. I do think it's somewhat annoying to read discriptions of songs and records which you know you'll never actually get around to hearing It got a little jarring at points see parenthesis above but- here's the kicker- Marcus writes so damn well about obscure novels and bootlegs and concerts that even if one did actually hear them or attend them Marcus' phrases are so distinct and so tastefully sketched that they envelop the music in a poetic aura of interpretation which becomes a thing of its own. He makes the music or, if one wants to be uncharitable his impression of the music vivid, incisive, tough-minded, and profound. I would love to see this kind of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, artistic style of criticism more often. Especially in academia. It's sort of an accepted truism that the critic is really just a frustrated artist- 'those who can, do, etc' If you read the best it has Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition offer the reason for its very being is more than present, its obvious, and makes such distinctions irrelevant to say the least. Criticism is, or should be, about making the thing discussed more vivid, more alive, more complex and writhingly real. Juxtaposition is not eclipse. Rave on View all 3 comments. Mar 26, Paul Secor rated it did not like it. Perhaps the most overrated writer on popular music - no, wait - that would be Dave Marsh. Both of those guys are more pimps than writers. Aug 29, Jon rated it really liked it. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition Rice correctly assesses Invisible Republic as where the Marcus voodoo choo-choo goes off the rails and re-reading this vividly recalled the many strange feelings one can get receive via the Holy Greil — from 'this is obviously the best thinking ever about music' to 'if I read one more evocation of the paradoxical nature of the South, I'm gonna choke myself on a chitlin. One: apparently I wasn't a Geoff Rice correctly assesses Invisible Republic as where the Marcus voodoo choo-choo goes off the rails and re- reading this vividly recalled the many strange feelings one can get receive via the Holy Greil — from 'this is obviously the best thinking ever about music' to 'if I read one more evocation of the paradoxical nature of the South, I'm gonna choke myself on a chitlin. One: apparently I wasn't a very bright teenager. I Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition all these passages highlighted in yellow but they're all completely random and usually not very interesting, sometimes just factual. I'll underline a totally nugatory line right next to a brilliant observation. I guess at seventeen years old Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition didn't know what the main idea in a paragraph was yet. On a more positive front, I was reminded of the way he makes criticism part of artistic process, especially in the chapter on the Band. His imagination helps make Big Pink a better record. I was also reminded how much this guy demanded of the art he cared about. After reading this I used to listen to even the most average post-REM college rock records dozens of times because Greil told me that if you couldn't play it five hundred times and keep finding something new it was either your fault or the record's In the case of Guadalcanal Diary's Walking In the Shadow of the Big Man it was probably the record. Anyway, now I never ask or Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition anything from anyone ever. Thanks context. In other news, everyone loves the Elvis chapter but, except for the end where he explains his theory of American popular culture, it's my least favorite. The Sly chapter, especially the section about conservatism in '70s soul which I kinda forgot has plenty of balls for a white cat from Berkeley. View 1 comment. Sep 05, Matthew rated it it was ok. The latest edition is two books in one: the first half is a spotty analysis of Marcus' favorite groups that barely holds together; the other half is a discography section that succeeds mostly because it's not weighed down by Marcus' own sense of self-importance. Then again, if your opinion supported every baby boomer's claim that modern music ceased to be relevant once they hit 30, you'd think every notion that came to you was important too. There's no clear thesis despite the subtitle of the b The latest edition Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition two books in one: the first half is a spotty analysis of Marcus' favorite groups that barely holds together; the other half is a discography section that succeeds mostly because it's not weighed down by Marcus' own sense of self-importance. Aug 09, Hilary rated it did not like it. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music: Sixth Edition |

His father had been a part-time gospel singer and Baptist preacher, but Hampton drew not just from Christianity, but brought Afrocentric folk traditions of his native South Carolina to bear in his composition. James: The Book of the 7 Dispensations dozens of pages are still in an uncracked code. As if the bejeweled shield of the Urim and the Thummim were constructed not by Levites in ancient Jerusalem, but by a janitor in Mt. Exodus and Leviticus give specifications for those liturgical objects of the Jewish Temple—the other-worldly cherubim gilded, their wings touching the hem of infinity huddled over the Ark of the Covenant; the woven brocade curtain with its many-eyed Seraphim rendered in fabric of red and gold; the massive candelabra of the ritual menorah. The materials with which the Jews built their Temple were cedar and sand stone, gold and precious jewels. When God commanded Hampton to build his new shrine, the materials were light-bulbs and aluminum foil, door frames and chair legs, pop cans and cardboard boxes, all held together with glue and tape. The overall effect is, if lacking in gold and cedar, transcendent nonetheless. What faith would compel this, what belief to see it finished? Nobody knew he was doing it. Hampton would die of stomach cancer innever married, and with few friends or family. The shrine would be discovered by a landlord angry about late rent. He was Elijah and Elisha awaiting Christ in the desert. At the start ofNayler was imprisoned, and when Fox visited him in his cell, the latter demanded that the former kiss his foot belying the Quaker reputation for modesty. Guided by the Inner Light that Quakers saw as supplanting even the gospels, Nayler thought of his mission in messianic terms, and organized his vehicle to reflect that. The tragedy of Nayler is that he happened to not actually be the messiah. There was John Reeve, Laurence Clarkson, and Lodowicke Muggleton, who took turns arguing over which were the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation, and that God had absconded from heaven and the job was now open. Abiezer Cope, prophet of a denomination known as the Ranters, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition that designation in his preaching and writing. There have been messianic claimants from first century Judea to contemporary Utah. When St. Peter was still alive there was the Samaritan magician Simon Magus, who used Christianity as magic and could fly, only to be knocked from the sky during a prayer-battle with the apostle. In the third century the Persian prophet Mani founded a religion that fused Christ with the Buddha, that had adherents from Gibraltar to Jinjiang, and a reign that lasted more than a millennium with its teachings smuggled into Christianity by former adherent St. A little before Mani, and a Phrygian prophet named Montanus declared himself an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, along with his consorts Priscilla and Maximillia. There are as many messiahs as there are people; there are malicious messiahs and benevolent ones, deluded head-cases and tricky confidence men, visionaries of transcendent bliss and sputtering weirdos. He Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition the nation by its throat and its crotch, and with pure libidinal fury was able to incarnate himself as the country. All of the accoutrement—the rhinestone jumpsuits, the karate and the Hawaiian schtick, the deep-fried-peanut-butter-banana-and-bacon- sandwiches, the sheer pill-addicted corpulence—are what make him our messiah. This is supposedly a faith that takes its pilgrimage to Graceland as if it were zebra-print Golgotha, that visits Tupelo as if it were Nazareth. Maybe by the time Elvism is taken seriously it will have quietly grown too large and well established to be crushed. If we were to think of an incarnation of the United States, of a uniquely American messiah, few candidates would be more all consumingly like the collective nation. In his appetites, his neediness, his yearning, his arrogance, his woundedness, his innocence, his simplicity, his cunning, his coldness, and his warmth, he was the first among Americans. Elvis is somehow both rural and urban, northern and southern, country and rock, male and female, white and black. Our contradictions are reconciled in him. A hideous slaughter followed Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition settlers as they drove deep into the continent. For Wodziwob, the Ghost Dance was an affirmation, but it has also been remembered as a doomed moment. Wovoka met many of his dead family members, he saw the prairie that exists beyond that which we can see, and he held counsel Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition Jesus Christ. Underneath would be the wonderful old-new world. A messiah is simultaneously the most conservative and most radical, preaching a return to a perfected world that never existed but also the overturning of everything of this world, of the jaundiced status Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition. The Ghost Dance married the innate strangeness of Christianity to the familiarity of native religion, and like both it provided a blueprint for how to overthrow the fallen things. Like all true religion, the Ghost Dance was incredibly dangerous. That was certainly the view of the U. Army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which saw an apocalyptic faith as a danger to white settler-colonials and their indomitable, zombie-like push to the Pacific. The Miniconjou Lakota people, forced into the Pine Ridge Reservation bywere seen as particularly rebellious, in part because their leader Spotted Elk was an adherent. As a pretext concerning Lakota resistance to disarmament, the army opened fire on gathered Miniconjou, and more than people mostly women and children would be slaughtered during the Wounded Knee Massacre. As surely as the Romans threw Christians to the lions and Cossacks rampaged through the Jewish shtetls of eastern Europe, so too were the initiates of the Ghost Dance persecuted, murdered, and martyred by the U. Becoming Lubavitch Chief Rebbe inSchneerson was a refugee from a broken Europe that had devoured itself. Witnesses said that the very countenance of the rabbi was transformed, as he declared that he would speak the words of the living G-d. Two days later Moscow State Radio announced that Stalin had fallen ill and died. The exact moment of his expiration was when a group of Lubavitch Jews had prayed that G-d would still the hand of the tyrant and punish his iniquities. Just as Christianity has had many pseudo-messiahs, so is Jewish history littered with figures whom some believers saw as the anointed one Christianity is merely the most successful of these offshoots. During the Second Jewish-Roman War of the second century, the military commander Simon bar Kokhba was lauded as the messiah, even as his defeat led to Jewish exile from the Holy Land. During the 17th century, the Ottoman Jew Sabbatai Zevi amassed a huge following of devotees who believed him the messiah come to subvert and overthrow the strictures of religious law itself. Zevi was defeated by the Ottomans not through crucifixion, but through conversion which is much more dispiriting. A century later, and the Polish libertine Jacob Frank would declare that the French Revolution was the apocalypse, that Christianity and Judaism must be synthesized, and that he was the messiah. Compared to them, the Rebbe was positively orthodox in all senses of the word. He also never claimed to be the messiah. What all share is the sense that to exist is to be in exile. That is the fundamental lesson and gift of Judaism, born from the particularities of Jewish suffering. Diaspora is not just a political condition, or a social one; diaspora is an existential state. Such is the story of going home but never reaching that destination, yet continuing nevertheless. A year after his visit, while being interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Selassie was asked what he made of the claims of his status. Central to the narrative of Rastafarianism is the reluctant messiah Selassie, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition life-long member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Ethiopia was the only independent country on the continent of Africa…a holy place. That the actual Selassie neither embraced Rastafarianism, nor was particularly benevolent in his own rule, and was indeed deposed by a revolutionary Marxist junta, is of no accounting. Rastafarianism found in Selassie the messiah who was needed, and in their faith there is a proud way of spiritually repudiating the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. What their example reminds us of is that a Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition people have no need of a messiah, that he rather always dwells amongst the dispossessed, regardless of what his name is. Among the Persian Sufis there is no blasphemy in staining your prayer rug red with shiraz. Popular throughout Iran and into central Asia, where the faith of Zoroaster and Mani had both once been dominant, Sufism drew upon those earlier mystical and poetic traditions and incorporated them into Islam. The faith of the dervishes, the piety of the wali, the Sufi tradition is that of Persian miniatures painted in stunning, colorful detail, of the poetry of Rumi and Hafez. One Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition of the form was Mansour al-Hallaj, born to Persian speaking parents with a Zoroastrian grandfather in the ninth century during the Abbasid Caliphate. When asked where Allah was, he once replied that the Lord was within his turban; on another occasion he answered that question by saying that God was under his cloak. The generally tolerant Abbasids decided that something should be done about al-Hallaj, and so he was tied to a post along the Tigris River, repeatedly punched in the face, lashed several times, decapitated, and finally his headless body was hung over the water. If imagining yourself as the messiah could get you decapitated by the 10th century Abbasids, then in 20th-century Michigan it only got you institutionalized. Based on three years of observation at the Ypsilanti State Hospital starting inRokeach treated this trinity of paranoid schizophrenics. Initially Rokeach thought that the meeting of the Christs would disavow them all of their delusions, that the law of logical non- contradiction might mean anything to a psychotic. But the messiahs were steadfast in their faith—each was singular and the others were imposters. Then Rokeach and his graduate students introduced fake messages from other divine beings, in a gambit that the psychiatrist apologized for two decades later and would most definitely land him before an ethics board today. Finally Rokeach grants them the right to their insanities, each of the Christs of Ypsilanti continuing in their merry madness. Or maybe the true madness of the Michigan messiahs was that each thought themselves the singular God. Mitt Romney. Supposedly a traveling salesman, J. Never clearly defined though its connotations are obviousslack is to the Church of the SubGenius what the Tao is to Taoism or the Word is to Christianity, both the font of all reality and that which gives life meaning. The Church of the SubGenius is oftentimes compared to another parody religion that finds its origins from an identical hippie milieu, though first appearing almost two decades before inknown by the ominous name of Discordianism. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of pure chaos, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making. To that end, the satirical elements—its faux scripture, its faux mythology, and its faux hierarchy—are paradoxically faithful enactments of its central metaphysics. For those of a conspiratorial bent, Thornley first conceived of the movement after leaving the Marine Corps, and he was an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald. A compendium of occult and conspiratorial lore whose narrative complexity recalls James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon, The Illuminatus! Trilogy was an attempt to produce for Discordianism what Dante crafted for Catholicism or John Milton for Protestantism: a work of literature commensurate with theology. Stang and Drummond, it should be said, were avid readers of The Illuminatus! This equal opportunity apostasy, attacking all three children of Abraham, haunted monotheism over the subsequent millennium, as the infernal manuscript was attributed to several different figures. They were scared of a possibility without an actuality, terrified of a dead God who was still alive. That work, going through several different editions over the next century, drew on the naturalistic philosophy of Benedict Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes to argue against the supernatural status of religion. A pack of Lucky Strikes, with its red circle in a field of white, crinkle of foil framing a raggedly opened end, sprinkle of loose tobacco at the bottom as a last cigarette is fingered out. Heinz Baked Beans, sweet in their tomato gravy, the yellow label with its picture of a keystone slick with the juice from within. Coca-Cola—of course Coca-Cola—its ornate calligraphy on a cherry red can, the saccharine nose pinch within. Products of American capitalism, the greatest and most all-encompassing faith of the modern world, left behind on the Vanuatuan island of Tanna by American servicemen during the Second World War. More than 1, miles northwest from Australia, Tanna was Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition to airstrips and naval bases, and for the local Melanesians, theGIs housed on their island Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music: Sixth Edition marked their lives. Today the John Frum cult still exists in Tanna. So much of prurient focus is preoccupied with the material faith. Consequently there is a judgment of the John Frum religion as being superficial. For those who pray to John Frum are not asking for work, or labor, or a Protestant work ethic, but rather delivery from bondage; they are asking to be shepherded into a post-scarcity world.