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Nick Coleman

The Train in the Night: A Story of Music and Loss Hardcover – 2 Feb. 2012

by Nick Coleman (Author)

30 ratings

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How do you lose music? Then having lost it, what do you do next? Nick Coleman found out the morning he woke up to a world changed forever by Sudden Neursosensory Hearing Loss.

The Train in the Night is an account of one man's struggle to recover from the loss of his greatest passion in life - and to go one step further than that: to restore his ability not only to hear but to think about and feel music.

Of all our relationships with art, the one we enjoy with music is the most complex, the most mysterious and, for reasons that cannot be explained by science alone, the most emotionally charged. Nothing about that relationship is simple. And yet it is perhaps through music that we make the most intimate contact with our sense of who we really are, at our most naked, unsophisticated, honest, and simplified. Through psalms, symphonies, love songs, ballads, boogie...

Where to start, though, for the newly deaf? Well, you can start, suggested a famous neurologist, by trying to remember every beautiful piece of music you've ever heard and then by thinking about that music over and over again until it begins to assume a new kind of form in your brain. You never know what might happen after that. And so that's what the author did. He went back to the origins of his passion - the series of big bangs which kicked off his musical universe - and then worked his way forwards through the back catalogue.

The Train in the Night is a memoir not quite like any other. It is about growing up, obviously. But it is also about becoming young again and trying to see the world for what it is, whether through the eyes of a teenage punk or those of a middle-aged music critic and father of two. It is about taste and love and suffering and delusion. It is about longing to be Keith Richards. It is funny, heartbreaking and, above all, true.

It is a hymn to music.

Print length

275 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Jonathan Cape Ltd
Publication date

2 Feb. 2012
Dimensions

14.61 x 2.54 x 22.38 cm
ISBN-10

0224093576
ISBN-13

978-0224093576
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Product details

Publisher : Jonathan Cape Ltd; 1st edition (2 Feb. 2012)
Language : English
Hardcover : 275 pages
ISBN-10 : 0224093576
ISBN-13 : 978-0224093576
Dimensions : 14.61 x 2.54 x 22.38 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,359,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,344 in Living with Disabilities Biographies
- 2,485 in Neurology
- 5,323 in Neurology & Clinical Neurophysiology

Customer reviews:
30 ratings

Product description

Review

Fascinating book... It's beautifully written, moving and, coming from 1970s, Yes-loving prog-rocker, surprisingly moving --Independent

About the Author

Nick Coleman was born in Buckinghamshire in 1960 but grew up in the Fens. Following a brief spell as a stringer at NME in the mid-1980s, he was Music Editor of Time Out magazine for seven years. This was followed by a dozen years as Arts and Features Editors at the Independent and Independent on Sunday. He has also written for The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, US Vogue, Intelligent Life, GQ and The Wire - mostly about music but also books, sport and travel. He lives in Hackney with his wife and two children.

Customer reviews

5 star		48%
4 star		20%
3 star		26%
2 star		6%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Laura Mitchison

dodges meaning as it envelopes or escapes us like a fart or a giggle

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2017

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Nick Coleman writes precisely about his experience of music and soundscapes, pursuing emergent perceptions into the empty fens of his childhood and beyond the auditory cortex. It was especially delightful because there’s a lot of nebulous writing about sound at the moment. Sound, I often read, dodges meaning as it envelopes or escapes us like a fart or a giggle. This isn't sound's fault, it's ours. Lots of us don't bother to examine why and how our favourite sounds express weal and woe. But N. Coleman does and does it well.

The remembered soundtrack leads him to discover bundles of meaning across the span of your life, rather than giving everything a neat linear progression. Shuttling back and forth keeps the stakes high: is he going to revel in the Rolling Stones or Nazareth again? Is anything going to happen with enigmatic Lulu?

And it's witty. I was cackling over his teenage antics and bog-side revelations and feeling for Stevie Wonder.

One person found this helpful

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Ms. K. Evans

A big help to me

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2012

Verified Purchase

I lost fifty per cent of my hearing three years ago, after having inflenza, and I am only 42 years old. The hardest thing for me to accept was how I thought I could never listen to music again, due to the massive distortion. I am a huge music lover, so it broke my heart when I could not even recognise favourite songs. I am still learning how to adjust how and what I can listen to.
This book was a huge comfort to me, as none of my friends, family, or even the professionals, understood how tremendously difficult this last three years have been for me.
I wish to give a huge thanks to the author, as I no longer feel alone.

20 people found this helpful

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Stevie

Great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 July 2020

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This is a fascinating insight into hearing loss, is well written, and a great read.

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J Page-Reader

Uplifting and inspiring read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 June 2015

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This is such a beautiful and thought-provoking book. It made me think of my own teenage years in an utterly different way - charting it through the music I listened to, a lot of which I had forgotten. If you grew up in the Seventies you cannot fail to be enchanted. It's also an extraordinary account of devastating hearing loss - honest, uncompromising, disturbing at times, but ultimately uplifting and inspiring. Read it.

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Chris

It resonates

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2018

Verified Purchase

Interesting read

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El Asmar

A gem

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 January 2016

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Nick, this is a great book, all the more so for the era and area you have recreated (we were at school together ... both migrants from the land of purple and black to the land of green). You tell your own personal story very movingly, and obviously lived it even more movingly. I really like the ending. Wishing you well and happy.

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Mr R.

100% Excellent. Don't hesitate to order from this seller. Fast delivery and excellent quality.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2020

Verified Purchase

Given as a gift having read online reviews

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Mick Hough

A well-written musical trip through the 70s - woven together with painful detail of the author's loss of hearing. thanks @nickba

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 November 2014

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A well-written musical trip through the 70s - woven together with painful detail of the author's loss of hearing. From Prog rock to tinnitus via punk.

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