Juliana Hatfield 'When I Grow Up'

First ever book review on T&G and probably the first music related book I have read since I started this blog.

I've been a fan of Juliana Hatfield's for 15 years now and of all of artists I like she would possibly have been the one I would least have expected to write an autobiography, or 'memoir' as it is described. She always seemed, from her lyrics, her interviews and her communication, or lack thereof, with fans, to be an extremely private person who would hate the idea of something like this. Over the last few years though, she has seemed to open up a little, posting demos on her website and writing short descriptions of the new songs, finally touring Europe and recently starting to write a fascinating and brilliant blog where she takes one of her songs each week and writes a lengthy explanation of the song. Really interesting and very personal stuff. With that blog (its called 'An Arm And A Leg' by the way) in mind, I had high hopes for this book.

And it sort of disappointed me. A little.

It isn't written in chronological order. There are two narratives running side by side in alternating chapters. One is a long and detailed, night by night, account of a 2003 tour with her side-project 'Some Girls', the other is an account of her career in the form of snapshots of important moments, such as signing her first record contract (an account which will be familiar to any fans of her song 'Lets Blow It All'), recording 'Only Everything' and her (major) label refusing to release 'God's Foot'.

To start with, this works really well because both parts are fascinating. It is really interesting to read an account of a gig from an artist's point of view and this is the most detailed account I've ever read. Anyone who thinks that it is a glamourous life for anyone not selling millions of records ought to read this, so ought anyone who regularly downloads music for free but claims they are not ripping off the artist. The trouble is though, this account is more or less repeated chapter after chapter with just a small amount of variation and small things like an argument with her merchandise guy are built up into really long sections with Juliana repeatedly asking rhetorical questions such as 'Why am I so mean?', 'Why can't I just be happy?' etc etc. At the same time, really interesting things like the whole 'God's Foot' episode (I know this is terrible blog etiquette but...check Wikipedia if you don't know the story) are covered in a couple of pages.

I enjoyed this book and found it very readable, if a bit frustrating. The tour part of the book does serve as an interesting account of the life of someone making a living from music but not selling millions of records. It reveals a lot about Juliana as a person and about the way the industry can chew people up and spit them out. If you're a fan though, you may find the lack of much insight into Juliana's music pre-2003 a little disappointing. Possibly Juliana has done this to make the book accessible even to people who aren't familiar with her career, in that sense it works- if you're not a fan the book is still a good read, and if you are a fan, you're going to buy it anyway!

['When I Grow Up' is out now from old good, and some bad, bookshops. 'God's Foot' still hasn't been released.....]