Ink on the Tracks: Rock and Roll Writing

by Adrian Grafe (Editor), Andrew McKeown (Editor)

Overview

This book embraces the multiplicity of forms of writing inspired by rock and roll.

Exploring a diverse range of formats including rock autobiography and gender, race and class in American rock journalism, rock obituaries, rock literature and spirituality, rock writing and promotion/packaging, and more, this book identifies and prioritizes writing forms often excluded from the categorization of rock music writing. Vitally, the volume places rock and roll writing within a wider cultural frame often overlooked by studies of traditional white male-led music journalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765101995
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/30/2026
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Adrian Grafe is Professor of English at Université d'Artois, France. He has published widely on the connections between popular music and literature and written for TLS, Essays in Criticism and The Spectator. He co-edited and contributed to 21st-Century Dylan: Late and Timely (Bloomsbury, 2021). His novel The Ravens of Vienna was published in 2022.

Andrew McKeown is Senior lecturer in English at the University of Poitiers, France. He has made several contributions to scholarly works on poetry and popular music. He co-edited and contributed to Edward Thomas: Roads from Arras (2018) and 21st-Century Dylan: Late and Timely (Bloomsbury, 2021). He has also published poetry, You What? (2017) and fiction, Spurts (2022).

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Lover's Discourse? Rock and Roll Writing
Andrew McKeown
Part 1: Come Writers and Critics
1. 'I read the news today … oh boy': Taking the Pulse of UK Popular Music Journalism
Simon Morrison, University of Chester, UK
2. Lester Bangs's Rock Writing and the Great American Mythos
Maud Berthomier, Independent Scholar, France
3. Rock and Philosophy: From Adorno to the anti-Adornian Generation?
Cristina Parapar, Sorbonne University, France
4. The Concert: Between Creation, Re-creation and Writing of Popular Music
Julie Mansion-Vaquié, University of Nice, France
5. Classed Narratives of Popular Music History
Jon Stratton, University of South Australia
Part 2: Every Day I Write the Book
6. All the Years Combine: Digital Media, the Grateful Dead Archive and the Wheel of Time
M. Cooper Harriss, Indiana University, USA
7. 'I obliterate myself in song': Music, Selfhood and Discovery in YA Fiction
Ben Screech, University of Gloucestershire, UK
8. Rock Music and the Contingencies of History: Dawnie Walton's The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Adrian Grafe, Artois University, France
9. Writing into the Canon: Women and Music Memoir
Lucy O'Brien, London College of Music, University of West London, UK
10. Rock Obits: Patti Smith and the Deceased
Janneke Van Der Leest, Radboud University, Netherlands
11. 'The magic runes are writ in gold': Writing Mythology, Transcendence and Faith in Rock
Simon McAslan, Vanier College, Canada
12. Paul is dead … Long Live Paul: Reinventing Eden in Rock and Roll Writing
Charles Holdefer, writer, Belgium
13. Something Up Their Sleeve? The Doubtful Art of Liner Notes
Andrew McKeown, University of Poitiers, France
General Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A remarkably wide-ranging collection of essays that stresses the extraordinary power of Rock and Roll to generate first-rate criticism and commentary. The essays are impressively eclectic, touching everything from the philosophy of Adorno to the poetics of liner notes.” —Timothy Hampton, author of Bob Dylan, How the Songs Work

“You may be drawn to particular entries in Rock and Roll Writing's extraordinary range of topics and approaches, and you should stay for this entire exemplary collection. Throughout the entire anthology, whether a discussion of Patti Smith's elegiac writings, a challenge to Adorno's disparagement of popular music, a deep and informed look at the Grateful Dead's digital life – it's truly impossible to do justice to the collection's diversity – Rock and Roll Writing proves that intellectual seriousness can inspire your relationship with the music you love.” —Nina Goss, editor of Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century (2017) and Dylan at Play (2011)

“A stellar exploration of the multifarious connections between rock music and the written word, Rock and Roll Writing examines classic and more unexpected formats, offering fresh perspectives on crucial, contemporary issues.” —Claude Chastagner, Professor of American Popular Culture, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, France

“Editors McKeown and Grafe have produced a vigorous rock concert of a book, each essay a hit in its own way. This well-researched and lively volume enables readers, whether scholars or aficionados, to tune in to the peculiarly enlightening heterogeneity of writing about Rock and Roll.” —Emily Taylor Merriman, Associate Director of the Writing Center, Amherst College, USA

From the Publisher