Words and music - an irresistible combination

Reading and music are two of my favourite things, so books about or by musicians are an irresistible combination.

This past week I’ve been skipping between books written by two Australian musicians.

“Tex”, the autobiography of Tex Perkins is a rollicking yarn.

Easy to read, it is funny and brutal and disarmingly honest. Sure, there’s drugs (lots of them), and sex and plenty of rock and roll, but there’s also hilarious tales of growing up in Brisbane, bad haircuts, finding love in the time before Tinder and an at times brutal assessment of his own performances. From the Cruel Sea and Beasts of Bourbon, to Tex Don and Charlie and Dark Horses, his music has been part of the soundtrack of my life and there were plenty of moments I recognised.

Reading “Tex” was an exercise in nostalgia in part, liking catching up with an old friend and remembering just why it was you liked them so much. When I finished, I put on a Beasts album, and played the Cruel Sea, so I guess that’s the sign of a music book that’s done its job.

In between the road trip with Tex, I’ve been on a journey with Warren Ellis, another Australian musician who has featured strongly in my playlists over the years, from the Dirty Three to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

But this book is on a totally different path. There is no moment where I recognised myself in it. Warren’s story of his obsession with a piece of Nina Simone’s chewing gum really shows the gap between the avid music fan and those truly devoted to music. Unless you’ve had a vision of Beethoven, you’re not in the same league.

“Nina Simone’s Gum” is a book about reverence, and awe and how even something as mundane as a piece of gum can be imbued with meaning. I started off bemused and a little cynical about his devotion, but halfway through this slender book, I found myself buying into his belief. Nick Cave said Warren has turned the gum “into a genuine religious artefact”, and it’s hard not to agree. I even found myself wishing I could have one of the gold casts he had made of the precious gum.

This is a book about music and the road that led Warren to a career as an international musician. But it’s also about why we collect items and how they grow in meaning over the years. It’s about friendship and the language of music and how one man’s unwavering belief can transform something as mundane as gum into something truly remarkable.

Warren Ellis is a bower bird, a collector of random objects (one list includes a wooden birdcage, velvet cushions, painted pine cones, wooden cotton reels, a box of keys and a collection of Winnie the Pooh books). Musically he communicates on another level – as anyone who has seen him perform live can attest. Music is “pure emotion”, he says. “Instrumental music allows you to draw your own emotions, put yourself in the narrative of the chords and melody. Take what you want. Create your own relation to the vibrating narrative.”

He said writing the book he struggled with the written word, because, unlike music, words are so ”concrete”. That’s part of why the book is so enticing. Every word feels real, like he selected it slowly, and carefully placed it on the page. But at the same time, there is so much joy and wonder in the story.

I can’t think of another book that feels or sounds like this one. It's artistic and spiritual, fundamental and transcendent.

The world would be a better place if we all found something that inspired and moved us like Warren Ellis and Nina Simone’s gum.