Ink on the Tracks

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).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.

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.

• Introduction: A Lover’s Discourse? Rock and Roll WritingAndrew McKeownPart 1: Come Writers and Critics1. ‘I read the news today … oh boy’: Taking the Pulse of UK Popular Music JournalismSimon Morrison, University of Chester, UK2. Lester Bangs’s Rock Writing and the Great American MythosMaud Berthomier, Independent Scholar, France3. Rock and Philosophy: From Adorno to the anti-Adornian Generation?Cristina Parapar, Sorbonne University, France4. The Concert: Between Creation, Re-creation and Writing of Popular MusicJulie Mansion-Vaquié, University of Nice, France5. Classed Narratives of Popular Music HistoryJon Stratton, University of South AustraliaPart 2: Every Day I Write the Book6. All the Years Combine: Digital Media, the Grateful Dead Archive and the Wheel of TimeM. Cooper Harriss, Indiana University, USA7. ‘I obliterate myself in song’: Music, Selfhood and Discovery in YA FictionBen Screech, University of Gloucestershire, UK8. Rock Music and the Contingencies of History: Dawnie Walton’s The Final Revival of Opal & NevAdrian Grafe, Artois University, France9. Writing into the Canon: Women and Music MemoirLucy O’Brien, London College of Music, University of West London, UK10. Rock Obits: Patti Smith and the DeceasedJanneke Van Der Leest, Radboud University, Netherlands11. ‘The magic runes are writ in gold’: Writing Mythology, Transcendence and Faith in RockSimon McAslan, Vanier College, Canada12. Paul is dead … Long Live Paul: Reinventing Eden in Rock and Roll WritingCharles Holdefer, writer, Belgium13. Something Up Their Sleeve? The Doubtful Art of Liner NotesAndrew McKeown, University of Poitiers, FranceGeneral BibliographyIndex