The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “music”

Susan Sontag on How the False Divide Between Pop Culture and “High” Culture Limits Us
Susan Sontag on How the False Divide Between Pop Culture and “High” Culture Limits Us

“There are contradictory impulses in everything.”

read article

Duke Ellington’s Artistry and Artifice: How the Jazz Icon Engineered His Own Image
Duke Ellington’s Artistry and Artifice: How the Jazz Icon Engineered His Own Image

“Ellington [was] a combination of Sir Galahad, Scrooge, Don Quixote, and God knows what other saints and sinners that were apt to pop out of his ever-changing personality.”

read article

David Bowie’s Formative Reading List of 75 Favorite Books
David Bowie’s Formative Reading List of 75 Favorite Books

From poetry to history to theory of mind, with plenty of fiction and a few magazines for good measure.

read article

If Dogs Run Free: Bob Dylan’s 1970 Classic, Adapted by Illustrator Scott Campbell
If Dogs Run Free: Bob Dylan’s 1970 Classic, Adapted by Illustrator Scott Campbell

“If dogs run free, then why not we / Across the swooping plain?”

read article

A Eulogy to Words: The Only Recording of Virginia Woolf’s Voice, Adapted for Chamber Orchestra
A Eulogy to Words: The Only Recording of Virginia Woolf’s Voice, Adapted for Chamber Orchestra

“Our unconsciousness is their privacy; our darkness is their light.”

read article

The Interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s Dreams
The Interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s Dreams

Freud, Jung, sexual identity, and the creative process.

read article

Jazz Legend Wynton Marsalis on the Magic of Music
Jazz Legend Wynton Marsalis on the Magic of Music

“That’s the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don’t know if they’ll like it, but you offer it.”

read article

Janis Joplin on Creativity and Rejection: Her Lost Final Interview, Rediscovered and Animated
Janis Joplin on Creativity and Rejection: Her Lost Final Interview, Rediscovered and Animated

“You are what you settle for.”

read article

Patti Smith’s Advice to the Young, by Way of William S. Burroughs
Patti Smith’s Advice to the Young, by Way of William S. Burroughs

“To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.”

read article

It’s Only Music: Alfred Wertheimer’s Never-Before-Seen Photos of Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll
It’s Only Music: Alfred Wertheimer’s Never-Before-Seen Photos of Elvis and the Birth of Rock and Roll

The visual history of a shy boy in Memphis who came to rule the world and break a billion hearts.

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)