About the book
We come on the ship they call The Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune
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Paul Simon - American Tune
AMERICAN TUNE is a musical travelogue through a changing America, but also an economic journey, from poor Kentucky to California - the richest state of all. AMERICAN TUNE is a historic drive through technological development, as well as a travel in energy from polluting coal to clean solar power.
Each individual chapter in AMERICAN TUNE is dedicated to the story behind a single song. The chapters stand on their own and can be read separately, but several describe parallel events or tell a different version of the same story. You will probably recognize yourself. Why?
Because you meet life itself. Life, love and death form the basis of the art of storytelling right from the early mythologies, and what poignant songs often have in common is that they mirror life . We recognize ourselves because the artists basically sing about ourselves.
In distilled form, this book is a story about you and me, even if the stories describe life-changing events, entire communities that are falling apart and heartbreaking destinies.
As a writer, it is a grateful task to retell existing stories. There is a reason they have survived, and that talented songwriters have seized on these events in the first place. My contribution will be to tie it all together.
There are excerpts from three chapters in the side blog so that you get some idea of how the book might turn out in the end.
However, I do not pay much attention to which amplifier Mark Knopfler used for his guitar parts on Telegraph Road , or in which studio Bruce Springsteen recorded Youngstown. It has probably been done before, and is, in my eyes, the icing of the cake. The stories and destinies behind the songs take the cake.
During a couple of months on the road through twenty-something American states, my travel companions and I - my very own Band of Brothers, - will meet God-given song writers and world-famous artists. We will meet descendants of persons immortalized in songs, and time witnesses who lived during eras or close to events mentioned in other songs.
It's the stories behind the songs, not the songs themselves, that will ride the passenger seat from Kentucky to California. In some cases, they will probably take wheel. That is essential.
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I picked songs by well-known artists, but also included some lesser-known contributions. I primarily considered the effect the story itself had on me and whether it made me want to learn what really happened.
The story is more important than the song, and for that reason I did not choose the "best" or most famous song of each individual artist. If the story itself triggers something in me, it will probably affect you too.
Sales figures and popularity are not important in the selection process, but it is crucial to find a location in the US to visit and see the place "where it happened". I don't want to pick artists no one has heard of, and thus I ended up at my very own Crossroads:
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A powerful event or an interesting story.
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A song recorded by a (fairly) well-known artist that is based on this story, or where the song, after its release, can be linked to an interesting story.
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A location in the US where the story actually took place, or that can be connected to the song.
I need to find a narrative for each individual chapter, and connect it to a social development, a technological breakthrough, or a time witness, a songwriter or a professional who can say something about what actually happened. Then I must try to meet these busy people as I travel through several time zones.
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks...​