Magic: A Journal of Song - by Paul Weller (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

'I can be scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, or singing a funny little idea into my phone, and all of a sudden, it becomes a beautiful fully fledged song. And I'm asking myself, how did we do that again? I still find that fascinating. It's magic.' - PAUL WELLER
In Magic: A Journal of Song, Paul Weller talks about his life and music through a personally curated selection of over 100 songs spanning his entire musical career.

As one of the most innovative and remarkable songwriters of the last 50 years, Paul Weller has proved to be the ultimate shapeshifter, moving from The Jam's punk sensibilities to the genre-defying Style Council, and later through a remarkable 30-year solo career. Alongside Lennon and McCartney, Weller is one of few artists that has attained a UK number one album over five consecutive decades, and has also received career defining awards from the BRITs (Lifetime Achievement Award), NME Awards (Godlike Genius Award) and a GQ Award for Songwriter of the Year.

Magic: A Journal of Song is the definitive book of Weller's songwriting career from founding The Jam in his teenage years, to creating The Style Council, through to his years as a solo musician. Offering unprecedented insight into Weller's creative process, his lyrics are accompanied by more than 450 photographs and items of memorabilia, and an illuminating commentary of over 25,000 words. As told to journalist and author, Dylan Jones, Magic is Paul Weller's most candid and intimate account of his musical life to date.

'Paul Weller has proved that he is not only beyond reproach, in some senses he is quite possibly without equal.' - DYLAN JONES OBE
'The thing I have discovered is that music in its truest sense is beyond any trend or movement or category.' - PAUL WELLER

About the Author

Paul Weller is a multi-award-winning musician with a career spanning almost 50 years. He has been an integral part of the British music scene since the early 1970s, when he founded the Jam. He was later one half of The Style Council, an experimental pop band, and has gone on to have a hugely successful solo career. As a songwriter, Weller is considered on par with artists such as Paul McCartney and David Bowie and has received awards from the BRITs (Lifetime Achievement Award), NME Awards (Godlike Genius Award) and a GQ Award for Songwriter of the Year.

Dylan Jones is the award-winning editor and international best-selling author. A former editor at i-D, The Face, Arena, GQ, the Observer and the Sunday Times, he is a former media columnist and the author of over 20 books. He was the Chairman of the Prince's Trust's Fashion Rocks, a Chairman of the British Fashion Council, a board member of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony and is a Trustee of the Hay Festival and an ambassador for the UK's GREAT Campaign. In June 2013, he was awarded an OBE for services to journalism.