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Heavy Mettle

Can an essay about a Beatles album be more emotionally affecting than the album itself? After reading Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives (out tomorrow), the answer is most certainly “yes!”

Recalling her pre-teen romance with Meet the Beatles!, Alice Elliott Dark, author of In the Gloaming, describes how George Harrison became her imaginary big brother after her father’s sudden death. Painful, poignant, unexpectedly compelling, “The Quiet One” leaves you in tears. (“I Want To Hold Your Hand” just leaves you humming a catchy tune.)

Edited by Peter Terzian, the anthology aims higher (and digs deeper) than any recent issue of Rolling Stone or Spin. In lieu of third-person smugness, there are real stories: how the Annie soundtrack empowered Sheila Heti, then broke her heart; how Talking Heads’ Remain in Light (and a canary) informed John Haskell’s evolution as a wordsmith; how Eurythmics’ Savage turned Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, into one of two people who have publicly hailed the late-era album as a favorite. (The other: Eurythmic Dave Stewart.) Give Heavy Rotation a summer spin, and it will top the “25 Most Played” list on the iPod of your mind.


Heavy Rotation will be available tomorrow from Harper Perennial.