This book engages with the question of how music expresses and responds to the profound existential disturbance that death and loss present to the living. Singing Death ranges across genres from medieval love song to twenty-first-century horror film music. Each chapter offers readers an encounter with music as a distinct way of speaking or responding to human mortality. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines: musicology, ethnomusicology, literature, history, philosophy, film studies, psychology and psychoanalysis. The collection is accompanied by a website including some of the music associated with each of its chapters.

Music is often our companion when dealing with the incomprehensibility of loss. This edited collection speaks to the multifarious and complex ways in which music accompanies, supplements, and complements aspects of death and dying, whether this is the death of a loved one, or a celebrity from popular culture.

The accompanying CD contains music excerpts which are listed in the book on pgs. xiii-xvii.

Challenges the conventional wisdom that the internet is 'killing' the music industry.

A DAILY TELEGRAPH and IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The must-read music book of the year, now with a brand new chapter covering the death of Taylor Hawkins and his massive Wembley memorial concert. In Bodies, author Ian Winwood explores the music industry's many failures, from addiction and mental health issues to its ongoing exploitation of artists. Much more than a touchline reporter, Winwood also tells the story of his own mental health collapse, following the shocking death of his father, in which extinction-level behaviour was given perfect cover by a reckless industry. 'This is such a shrewd, funny, psychologically perceptive, frank, well-written, jawdropping book . Absolutely buy and read the hell out of this.' DAVID STUBBS 'Winwood makes a compelling argument and overturns some long-held notions about "rock and roll excess" by deftly tying together a vast amount of information . . . and liberally lacing it with dark, self-deprecating humour.' ALEXIS PETRIDIS EditBuild

An ironically upbeat book that asks some of today’s most inimitable musicians which song they would choose to be the last one they ever hear Variety Best Music Book of 2020 TIME Best Book of Fall 2020 Selection If you could choose the last song you’d hear before you died, what would it be and why? Your favorite song of all time? Perhaps the one you danced to at your wedding? The song from that time you got super stoned and just let the chords speak to you? It’s a hard question that Mike Ayers has thought about for years. In One Last Song, Ayers invites 30 musicians to consider what song they would each want to accompany them to those pearly white gates. Weaving together their explanations with evocative illustrations and poignant interludes—what your song to die to says about you, what songs famous people have died to, and more. The book offers insight into the minds of famous artists and provides an entry point for considering how integral music is to our own personal narratives. Artists Featured: Jim James of My Morning Jacket, André 3000, Killer Mike, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Phoebe Bridgers, Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES, A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers, Courtney Barrett, Bobb Bruno of Best Coast, Angel Olsen, Regina Spektor, Kevin Morby, Will Oldham, Julia Holter, Margo Price, Sonny Rollins, Ryley Walker, Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, Yannis Phillippakis of Foals, Bettye Lavette, M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, Wanda Jackson, Roseanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, and Beth Orton.

The roots and evolution of two concepts usually thought to be Western in origin-musica mundana (the music of the spheres) and musica humana (music's relation to the human soul)-are explored. Beginning with a study of the early creeds of the Near East, Professor Meyer-Baer then traces their development in the works of Plato and the Gnostics, and in the art and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Previous studies of symbolism in music have tended to focus on a single aspect of the problem. In this book the concepts of musica humana and musica mundane are related to philosophy, aesthetics, and the history of religion and are given a rightful place in the history of civilization. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Of the ten chapters, seven provide description and analysis of clinical cases, based on the therapeutic experience of the author over the last 44 years. The cases are reflective of the specific situation in present Israeli society. Three other chapters examine the role of Israeli songs in coping with collective and personal grief, and specifically address the relation between art music, death, and grief, and the grief of the therapist over patients who have passed away. The book deals with a variety of diagnoses, populations, ages, psychomedical theories, and approaches.

The evidence of death and dying has been removed from the everyday lives of most Westerners. Yet we constantly live with the awareness of our vulnerability as mortals. Drawing on a range of genres, bands and artists, Mortality and Music examines the ways in which popular music has responded to our awareness of the inevitability of death and the anxiety it can evoke. Exploring bereavement, depression, suicide, violence, gore, and fans' responses to the deaths of musicians, it argues for the social and cultural significance of popular music's treatment of mortality and the apparent absurdity of existence.

Since time immemorial, the response of the living to death has been to commemorate the life of the departed through ceremonies and rituals. For nearly two millennia, the Christian quest for eternal peace has been expressed in a poetic-musical structure known as the requiem. Traditional requiem texts, among them the anonymous medieval Latin poem Dies Irae ('Day of Wrath'), have inspired an untold number of composers in different ages and serving different religions, Western and Eastern. This book, the first comprehensive survey of requiem music for nearly half a century, provides a great deal of diverse and detailed information that will be of use to the professional musician, the musical scholar, the choral conductor, the theologian and liturgist, and the general reader. The main body of the guide is a description of some 250 requiems. Each entry includes a concise biography of the composer and a description of the composition. Details of voicing, orchestration, editions, and discography are given. An extensive bibliography includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, prayer books, monographs, and articles. An appendix lists more than 1700 requiems not discussed within the main text.