Musician Koppy takes a nuanced look at popular songwriting with an eye toward providing “principles and practices that might lead English-language songwriting to more resonance and significance.” Analyzing songs written by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Buck Owens, Kenny Rogers, and others, Koppy delivers a case against what he sees as the “commercially profitable crap” that has dominated popular songwriting since the 1960s. He has some strict and basic rules for what makes a good song: it “needs to be wholly intelligible on first hearing” and “it’s not really necessary that a song has a great melody for it to be significant.” He takes down the lyrics of well-known songs such as Don McLean’s “American Pie” (“utter clumsiness”), the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (the chorus is “such an incredibly consummate disaster”), the Beatles’ “And I Love Her” (“just plain bad”), and most every song by Bob Dylan, whom he calls “the most ruthless, spineless, and prosperous” plagiarizer in pop music, who has produced “nothing of lasting literary or musical standing.” Koppy’s view of songwriting and songwriters is highly opinionated and debatable but is delivered with conviction. Songwriters and die-heard music aficionados will find much food for thought here. (BookLife)