I remember there was a time when i was fifteen-sixteen when music was everything to me . I took it all very seriously and i really felt that my two or three favourite rock groups said more about me than a diary would and somehow defined me . Love was a fairly unknown delicacy back then and confusion was the main element in my teenagehood . I was so dissapointed when , for example , Belly's "King" didnt sell much or when people i striked a music conversation with had no idea who Lush or Jason Falkner was ( they probably still don't ) .
I became familiar with Hersh's body of work later in life . Although often challenging and difficult , her music was so raw and honest you couldn't help but admiring her . Her recently released memoir took me back again to that time when music meant the world . Hersh was an outsider in school herself , one who made great music and was happy doing just that and nothing more . Her wandering around in deserted houses for a sleep-over , walks on a beach with a friend , college corridors and , later in the book , recording studios and especially her interactions with bandmates Narcizo , Langstone and step-sister Donelly ring so true and unspoiled . Her blurry thoughts about her writing process and songs resemble a lot to the feelings indie kids have for the music they love but find it impossible to express or pin down .
Unlike disastrous efforts like let's say Sting's " Broken Music " , this is truly how a music memoir should be . Hersh herself , now a mother of 4 and still producing special , complicated records , has long outgrown the book and like she says , this is a potrait of a girl she once was , not of who she is today as a person . Still it was so refreshing for me to travel in her little time-capsule and recall how innocent and dark it all was in that tender , vulnerable age .
