This is an amazing book. It is a collection of Interviews published originally in Song Talk, the journal of the National Academy of Songwriters. The writers are mostly US based and are mostly from the 1980s and 90s. I didn’t read it from cover to cover initially, I jumped to the interviews with the people I admire most and then slowly read the rest. This is much better than the usual music magazine interview, much longer and far less showbiz, the focus is on the songs.

He asks most of the writers where they believe their songs come from, if there is some kind of creative spirit. This is an interesting question as many writers do have some sort of answer. He also discusses their work patterns, do they treat it as a job or just wait for inspiration.

At 730 pages there is a lot of material and at the price it’s a bargain.

Best Bit: This is really hard to answer but there are three. The interviews with Dylan, Paul Simon and Lamont Dozier.