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Connection Is a Song

Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the '90s

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About this listen

 Longlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize

'I love this book!' SARAH CRACKNELL, SAINT ETIENNE

'Poignant and wonderfully warm' CATHY NEWMAN, CHANNEL 4 NEWS

'Shows us how music has the power to change everything' JUDE ROGERS

It is 1994. In a loft bedroom in North Yorkshire, fifteen-year-old Anna sits on the carpet immersed in the pages of Smash Hits, listening to cassette tapes that she keeps in a shoebox. She is dreaming of living inside the songs. The very same year, British music is about to be transformed and will leap from pop to rave to Britpop. This new universe will change Anna's life.

Connection is a Song is a journey through the sounds of the 1990s; the story of a life-defining love of music and the tracks that shaped this girl's adventures through the decade. It travels from the impossibly mournful 'Nothing Compares 2 U' by Sinead O'Connor to the delirium of the KLF's '3 a.m. Eternal' via the cartoon swagger of EMF's 'Unbelievable', Madonna's terrifyingly sexy 'Vogue' and the guitar indie heart of the '90s where Elastica's 'Connection' beats Blur and Oasis in Anna's own Battle of Britpop.

This is a powerful, universal coming of age story - and also a coming out story - about growing up in an English provincial town, with its suspiciously sticky nightclub floors, the lingering smell of Impulse deodorant, kisses that taste of cider and songs that give Anna feelings that she has never felt before. It is the tale of an outsider who, through connections made at gigs, mysterious black feathers and conversations in smoke-filled cars, finds the people and the places that will take her to her life.©2024 Anna Doble (P)2024 Bonnier Books UK Art & Literature Biographies & Memoirs Journalists, Editors & Publishers LGBTQIA+ Creators Music Women
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I don’t normally take the time to leave reviews, but I really enjoyed this charming memoir. Anna’s straightforward love of great music echoes my own, but she is far more eloquent in explaining the attraction. I loved ticking off my favourite songs as she mentioned them, and was impressed that so many were covered - she even mentioned Death in Vegas!

All the memories of a wonderful decade

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