Name My Book

how can you not love the CSN-inspired title: "By the Time We Got to Woodstock?" Also, what I like about this title is not only that it incorporates an actual song lyric and mention of the most important (or best remembered) musical and cultural event of that year, but it also implies that your book will discuss how music, culture, and the culture of music got to that point. So that's my vote.

As much as I love the subtitle, "The Year My Head Exploded" (I'm so with you on that one) I think the one I like best is "The Explosive Story of the Rock Rev. . . " because it tells the reader exactly what the book is about. It's a lot of words, but I've found that buyers (and readers) don't seem to mind if the subtitle is long as long as the main title is short and descriptive (yet evocative of what's in the book).
Good luck--it sounds like a really great book!

popmuze said:

, I will personally come to dinner at your house, bringing a jug of chianti,

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You're not going to eat me are you?

I'll offer these (with no idea whether any of them have been used before)

1969
Love, War, and Rock & Roll
Stoned
Music of the Revolution
It's Only Rock & Roll
A Long Way Back from Woodstock
The Revolution on Main Street
Dropping Out
The 1960's / Plugged In
When the Decade That Would Never End, Did
The Whole World Was Watching
Songs from My Generation

Come Together
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Going Back
Hearthbeat of a Generation

Remember that (especially for nonfiction) a book's main title should evoke something that explains what it is; that's why "Going Back" is a difficult one because it doesn't say anything at all about what your topic is. A buyer for a bookstore may see the title only on a list of titles in a catalog (with little or no accompanying description). Going Back--is this a memoir? A travel guide? etc.

Your publisher may love these titles and feel great about the ambiguity, but common wisdom says it's a good idea to make it easy for your buyer to figure out what your book is about right away.

We Were Stardust

popmuze said:

Right now the editor's favorite is No Easy Way Down: The Story of the Explosive Rock Revolution of 1969.

My favorite is By the Time We Got to Woodstock: and name your subtitle.

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I'm old enough to remember Woodstock (although I wasn't there, party-pooper parents), and I agree with your choice. No Easy Way Down says nothing to me, and I probably wouldn't even pick it up to see what it was about.

MM

What song is No Easy Way Down from?

Lauri B said:

What song is No Easy Way Down from?

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The Carole King song...as sung by Dusty Springfield. (I'm guessing. DS is one of my favourites)

If that's a popular line, that would work, too. It's just not very "rock and roll," really. I always think of Carole King and Dusty Springfield as easy listening.

I just googled No Easy Way Down. Found the book:

No Easy Way Down
Subtitle: The Rock, Rage, and Revolution of 1969
Category: Reference
Published by: Backbeat Books

A fast-paced, fun, and sometimes brutal look at America's most volatile and creative year in music – 1969.

It was a time of euphoria and devastation, freedom and assassination, revolution and retribution, moonwalks and sit-ins, love-ins and race riots, sex, drugs, and guns. The Kennedy coronation in 1960 promised glamour, hope, and change; the return of Richard Nixon in 1968 put an end to that dream. In state after state, idyllic college campuses became killing fields and inner cities went up in flames as the drumbeat of popular music tried to drown out the drums of war.

1969 was birthed through the visions and violence of 1968. No Easy Way Down breathlessly documents a year that saw more music-as-manifesto and rock-as-revolution than ever before. At one mad outdoor party after another – from Miami to Denver, and from Woodstock to Altamont – cracks in the promised hippie utopia quickly turned to canyons. But at least it could be said that this generation went down swinging. This was the year that saw the Beatles go supernova while Bob Dylan hightailed it to Nashville. From the Byrds, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, the Doors, the Dead, the Airplane, and Janis Joplin to the Velvet Underground, the Mothers of Invention, Funkadelic, and the Fugs – not to mention the birth of Heavy thanks to British guitar monsters Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath – 1969 stands up as a decade-smashing anomaly in the annals of rock'n'roll captured gloriously in this blistering book.


IS THIS YOUR BOOK???

I just looked up the Carole King album that has No Easy Way Down on it. I think it came out in 1970. So that is kind of ironic.

Lauri B said:

I just looked up the Carole King album that has No Easy Way Down on it. I think it came out in 1970. So that is kind of ironic.

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Dusty released it in 1969.

You love Dusty, huh? I'll have to relisten.

popmuze said:

Correct, it's a Goffin & King song, as is "Goin' Back," as sung by the Byrds. As is "Ballad of Easy Rider," as sung in the movie by the Byrds. Incredible year, 1969. It's just needs a title. By the way, my introductory chapter is titled "Good Times/Bad Times," the Led Zeppelin song.

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I love when books like this have chapter titles. Excellent introductory chapter title.