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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.660973
EAN num: 9780452289185
ISBN number: 0452289181
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: March 25, 2008
Publishing house: Plume
Sale Popularity Level: 191835
Studio: Plume
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Catch a train to the heart of rock ’n’ roll with this essential study of the quintessential American art form. First published in 1975, Greil Marcus’s Mystery Train remains a benchmark study of rock ’n’ roll and a classic in the field of music criticism. Focusing on six key artists—Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley—Marcus explores the evolution and impact of rock ’n’ roll and its unique place in American culture. This fifth edition of Mystery Train includes an updated and rewritten Notes and Discographies section, exploring the evolution and continuing impact of the recordings featured in the book.
Amazon.com Review:
More than 20 years after its initial publication, Mystery Train remains one of the smartest, most provocative books ever written about rock-and-roll. Marcus puts his subjects--which include Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley, The Band, Randy Newman, and Sly Stone--into their proper context, which is the culture-at-large. He makes you understand why these musicians matter, and what they've contributed to the American imagination. In his introduction, Marcus confesses that he's no longer 'capable of mulling under Elvis without thinking about Herman Melville'--to the benefit, I might add, of both parties.
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Rated by buyers 
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I wanted to like this book, I really did -- but then I started reading it. Overwrought, labored over-analysis of a music that is best felt rather than dissected. The book takes chapters to state ideas that could be communicated in a paragraph. I couldn't even finish it.
Rated by buyers 
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The original edition of Mystery Train, in 1975, was a trail blazer in applying literary and historical criticism to rock music and musicians, and as such it has been widely and rightly praised. The validity, value, and sucess of this approach is evidenced by the world that it helped create, where popular music of all kinds ("Rock" being entirely too limiting a definition of the genres of which we write and think today) is not just an appropriate course of study, thought, and criticism, but perhaps the primary one for most who have come of age in the Mystery Train era.
That said, this fifth edition is in need of a major overhaul. Marcus makes a point to say in his introduction to this edition that the original text is mostly unchanged, as if it were inspired received revelation that must be retained intact lest heresy enter here. This original text constitutes the very first 177 pages in this edition, placing The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman, and Elvis Presley in their literary and historical context. An interesting selection--the very first and last are certainly iconic figures worthy of inclusion, but Marcus makes a good case for the inclusion of the middle two in drawing their roots back to Harmonica Frank (white "folk") and Robert Johnson ("black" blues) as antecedents, if not precedents for, rock music.
But so many things have transpired since the original Train left the station, that I had to hold it at arms length, reading this original section more as a document of historical interest, not as a critical review. For example, Richard Manual's suicide, Randy Newman's "Short People" breakout into the national charts and conscious, and Elvis' death all came after the original text. I found myself reading with this question in mind: how am I supposed to read and understand this text if Marcus does not address these facts? And in fact, in the Randy Newman case, Marcus makes the inconsistent but necessary decision to break into his received text and append a section about "Short People" and how it impacted Newman and his art.
For the rest, Marcus reserves his changes for the 200 pages of "Completely updated notes and discographies" which now take up more than half the book! There's the disconnect--the "notes and discographies" at the back are not just lists, but continued and updated review and criticism which range far wider over time and artist than the original part. The need to flip back and forth buries or loses (if the reader chooses to skip the flip) much of the impact of the writing, which is all very first rate. The Notes and Discography section on Elvis Presley is especially interesting, prompting me to want to relisten to Presley to place him correctly in my own ears and musical pantheon.
Marcus needs to tear apart the text cover to cover and reintegrate it into a single flow. Lets hope this is attempted in a future edition. The offspring of the original provides models for format that can be followed, for example see Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song, which I recently reviewed. Marcus is a better writer, in need of a conductor so this Train, 16 coaches long, can reconnect saints and sinners on their journey.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is an amazing look into the history and impact of rock and roll on pop culture. Greil Marcus writes about this artists and songs as a poet who has been deeply affected by this music. The lyrics seem to impact the very roots of his soul and diversly shape his world and view of America. This book is a must for any fan of rock and roll music or anyone interested on the impact rock and roll has had on American culture in general. Highly recommended.
Rated by buyers 
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Uh, I'm not sure I agree a hundred percent with your detective work, there, Greil.
If he truly wanted to present and comprehensive view of what his subtitle purports, that is, American myths archetypes and how they inform and are presented by Rock and Roll, why is the scope of this book so narrow? The artists he focuses on are a motley crew. Elvis, Robert Johnson sure- but Randy Newman? The Band, but not Dylan? Harmonica Frank, but no Chuck Berry? Berry's oeuvre itself is a perfect microcosm of 20th century American Mythos. Speaking of myth, why is Pilgram's Progress invoked as a metaphor for The Band, but Faust isn't referenced at all in the Robert Johnson chapter. America is nothing if not Faustian. This book is 40 percent Rock-Geek trivia, and 60 percent pure ponderous speculation. Marcus occasionally drifts into a fugue and wanders far away from his (musical) subject, several times in the Elvis section whereupon he suddenly remembers what he was supposed to be writing about and tries vainly to shoehorn all of his speculations together. I think Marcus is a fine writer (we would not entertain his notions for a second if he wasn't), and this book certainly has its moments, but on the whole it does not nearly live up to its hype. He has done better, in The Old, Weird America, dealing with the same themes and sticking to one musical subject (Dylan's Basement Tapes).
Rated by buyers -
I was SO excited about getting this in the mail to start reading, I had just read "This Wheels on Fire" by Levon Helm (which is AMAZING) and wanted to read more about that kind of music and read a critics take on it all and well...it was awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was pretentious and cliche...all of it. I cannot understand why this book is supposed to be so great. He makes all of these assumptions about what these musicians bodies of work are really about or are supposed to represent but even to someone who was not alive during the time period, it is obvious B.S.! Marcus tries to explain that The Band's whole body of work is some sort of metaphor...that is about a "worried man"...that their work is a story that they have made up to represent their fears and their vices. If you want to know what "the weight" is about, read Levon Helm's book which is honest, touching, inspiring AND informative.
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