Pete Fornatale (1945–2012)

I honestly have no memory of purchasing this book, but obviously I did. It seems like something I'd buy. How could I not? It's about about life lessons from rock songs.

And yet, it was not a good book. Not at all.

If you're going to write a book about songs and pull life lessons from them, buddy, you better go deep. So, when they mention the Eagles' Lyin' Eyes, an excellent song, with fantastic lyrics about a woman who essentially trades happiness for comfort, but somehow tries to get that happiness back through empty relationships, I'm expecting a pretty decent life lesson. Instead, we get this type of crap:

Do you find it hard to maintain eye contact with people? If so, be conscious of it and try it a little bit at a time in situations that are less threatening.

Please. Did you even listen to the song?

Or, how about Tom Petty's Refugee? It's a song that, to me, talks about not living your life in fear because you've been hurt before. "Everybody's had to fight to be free."

So what do the authors come up with?

Do you ever feel as though you're a refugee? In what part of your life do you fell [sic] that way?

So, my point is, don't go in thinking you're actually going to get life lessons based on the deeper meanings of the song lyrics. You won't. You'll get something that the authors, by selecting some titles, came up with in probably a couple of minutes with very little thought, tossed down in manuscript format, and moved on to the next song title.

Crap.… (meer)