Will I love Mystery Train?

The book begins with short chapters on a couple of blues players—Harmonica Frank and the mysterious Robert Johnson, who allegedly sold his soul to the devil so he could play guitar—before moving to extended chapters on Elvis, and others.

Marcus’s project is to cross-reference American history with American music and to try and make sense of them both. It sounds like something an academic would get up to, and plenty of research went into the making of Mystery Train (at 224 pages, the Notes and Discographies section of the 2015 edition is considerably longer than the original book).

However, Marcus… show more.

A groundbreaking book by rock’s foremost interpreter, Mystery Train presents the case for rock’s cultural – and political – significance as a specifically American art form.

Want to know what Herman Melville and Elvis Presley have in common? Or what rock tells us about the nature and experience of American life? Rock critic Greil Marcus has the answers, but even more influentially, he taught us to ask these questions in the first place.