CAUSE WARS?
GRAEME THOMSON When Words Fail: A Life With Music, War And Peace Ed Vulliamy Granta €28 ★★★★★
Let’s start at the end. The index of When Words Fail offers a neat overview of the territory Ed Vulliamy stakes out in this intriguing, deeply felt book about the power and purpose of music. So while the entry for ‘Bush’ includes two former US presidents, there is no room for Kate; on the same page, Black Sabbath sidle up alongside Tony Blair. You get the picture. When Words Fail portrays sociopolitical upheaval and (mostly) contemporary music not so much as uneasy bedfellows as dysfunctional co-dependents.
Vulliamy seeks to explore the nature and effect of what might be called oppositional music. From Hendrix to Shostakovich, Verdi to BB King, he dives deep into songs that rail against the ‘apathetic acceptance of power’, expressed in everything from a whisper to a scream.
It takes him from Belfast to Bosnia, Iraq to Mexico, the global ‘hot spots’ where Vulliamy served as a war reporter for some 40 years, places that shaped and ultimately damaged him.
Living in Manhattan at the time of 9/11, after the attack on the Twin Towers he phones up his newspaper first, then the mother of his children second. Aware of his questionable priorities, he seeks solace in the music of Patti Smith.
Memoir and thoughtful music criticism are woven among encounters with his heroes. In the company of Graham Nash, Joan Baez and Daniel Barenboim Vulliamy ponders the ultimate role of music, musing on how and why a series of notes can reach, rouse, soothe and inspire.
Robert Plant is puzzled to learn that Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir became the author’s personal soundtrack to the war in Iraq. ‘But why?’ asks the singer. ‘Just... listen to it,’ mumbles Vulliamy. In bomb-ravaged Mostar in 1992, the BosnianMuslim folk musician Ilijaz Delic ‘had to sing, to remind the people who they were’. World-music pioneer Joe Boyd posits the rather shocking notion that ‘hard rock brings a coarseness to our urban lives’. In other words, listening to Iron Maiden may make us more accepting of the horror of violence and war. Vulliamy’s mother, the celebrated children’s illustrator Shirley Hughes, provides charming pencil sketches for each chapter. Her son paints on a broader canvas. Essays on the role of music during the Holocaust and its significance in the Balkans in the early Nineties are especially moving. So, too, are the passages towards the end of the book, where he is battling ‘the war within’: PTSD, the death of a parent and trauma of a child, money issues, ill health and roaring existential rage at modern, ‘mediocre’ Britain. ‘What a curious life I’ve led,’ he concludes. ‘Unable to separate journalistic privilege from curiosity killed the-cat… and needing to set all this to music in some way.’ Curious is a good word for Vulliamy. And when it matters most, at least, words do not fail him.