'Too often we treat popular music as wallpaper surrounding us as we live
our lives. Jude Rogers shows the emotional and cerebral heft such music
can have. It's a personal journey which becomes universal.
Fascinating'
Ian Rankin
'Moving and absorbing, The Sound of Being Human mixes memoir,
analysis, anecdote and personal chronicle into a mosaic that evokes what
music means to the individual and the human tribe. A candid, beautiful
read'
Stuart Maconie
The Sound of Being Human explores why music plays such a deep-rooted
role in our lives from before we are born to our last days. At its heart
is Jude's own story: how songs helped her wrestle with the grief of
losing her father; concoct her own sense of self; sky-rocket her
relationships, both real and imagined, propel her own journey into
working life, adulthood and parenthood, and look to the future.
Shaped around twelve songs, ranging from ABBA's 'Super Trouper' to Neneh
Cherry's 'Buffalo Stance', Kraftwerk's 'Radioactivity' to Martha Reeves
and the Vandellas' 'Heat Wave', the book combines memoir and historical,
scientific and cultural enquiry to show how music can shape different
versions of ourselves; how we rely upon music for comfort, for
epiphanies, and for sexual and physical connection; how we grow with
songs, and songs grow inside us. It is about music's power to help us
tell our own stories, whatever they are, and make them sing.
