The Green Book of Songs by Subject
The Green Book of Songs by Subject: The Thematic Guide to Popular Music
By Jeff Green.
Published by Professional Desk References, Inc., 2002.
This is a big, chunky hardback book measuring 7.5" by 9.5" by 3" thick, running 1569 pages including the index, plus 21 pages of preferatory material.
The book is an example of an excellent mass-market paperback that has a definite place in an academic library. The first few pages consist of snippets of praise for the book, which you don't usually see in academic resources. The subject matter and functionality of the book make it suitable for an academic community as well as a popular audience though.
What the book is is a big index of popular songs - more than 35,000 songs, actually - by what they are about (in nearly 1800 categories). The book is arranged in an alphabetic sequence of song subjects (each with numerous cross-references to other categories in the book), with songs listed alphabetically under each. For each song, the performer, album on CD, and publisher are listed.
Opening the book at random, I am looking at page 498, which has the last half page of a four-page section listing songs about Fools, a half page of songs indexed with the term "Forgive (synonym: Mercy)", followed on page 499 by the beginning of a 3 and 3/4 page section of songs about Freedom and Independence.
The "see also" references for "Forgive" are "Bad, Character & Integrity, Cheating & Lies, Faith, God, Guilt, Help, Love (various), Mistakes, Teaching Values."
Artists included span all the decades of recorded popular music for which the recordings are presently available. Popular music is defined broadly and includes multiple genres - country, heavy metal, new wave, soul, jazz, etc.
The book is entirely the work of Jeff Green, whose other job is Executive Director for the trade publication Radio and Records.
The first edition of the book was published by Green in 1977, and he has done updates many times since.
A very useful book.
By Jeff Green.
Published by Professional Desk References, Inc., 2002.
This is a big, chunky hardback book measuring 7.5" by 9.5" by 3" thick, running 1569 pages including the index, plus 21 pages of preferatory material.
The book is an example of an excellent mass-market paperback that has a definite place in an academic library. The first few pages consist of snippets of praise for the book, which you don't usually see in academic resources. The subject matter and functionality of the book make it suitable for an academic community as well as a popular audience though.
What the book is is a big index of popular songs - more than 35,000 songs, actually - by what they are about (in nearly 1800 categories). The book is arranged in an alphabetic sequence of song subjects (each with numerous cross-references to other categories in the book), with songs listed alphabetically under each. For each song, the performer, album on CD, and publisher are listed.
Opening the book at random, I am looking at page 498, which has the last half page of a four-page section listing songs about Fools, a half page of songs indexed with the term "Forgive (synonym: Mercy)", followed on page 499 by the beginning of a 3 and 3/4 page section of songs about Freedom and Independence.
The "see also" references for "Forgive" are "Bad, Character & Integrity, Cheating & Lies, Faith, God, Guilt, Help, Love (various), Mistakes, Teaching Values."
Artists included span all the decades of recorded popular music for which the recordings are presently available. Popular music is defined broadly and includes multiple genres - country, heavy metal, new wave, soul, jazz, etc.
The book is entirely the work of Jeff Green, whose other job is Executive Director for the trade publication Radio and Records.
The first edition of the book was published by Green in 1977, and he has done updates many times since.
A very useful book.