Enjoyable read! Levitin explores the effect that six categories of "songs" have had on human evolution, communication-to-language, and society. He illustrates his hypotheses with snippets of lyrics, and includes interesting comments from song-writers like Sting and Joni Mitchell, which enhance the book.

This is NOT much of a neuroscience book as Levitin's previous book is; it is more a speculation on evolution, though not particularly deep. That is, I feel that the book is only an introduction to a theory that songs have shaped the world, but it is an enjoyable read that I hope is followed up with continuing research, study, and analysis. ( )

I respect anyone with a more diverse taste in music that me, and Levitin fits the bill. In fact, having read the first sentence of the book, I wonder if anyone alive listens to a broader array of tunes than he does.

Unfortunately, this book wasn't what I expected. Given his vocation (Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Music at McGill University), I expected more science and less conjecture. This book relies quite heavily on personal anecdotes and conversations with musicians to move it along. There were times when the length of some stories felt like he was grasping for content.

The most fascinating part of the book was how he reached cross-genre to provide examples for his various categories—friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. If only he had more killer and less filler! ( )

Fun Book ( )

In many ways this book is even more enlightening than Oliver Sacks' book 'Musicophilia', as it focuses more on the cultural aspects of music rather than neurological phenomena. While Sacks delves deeply into the mysteries of the brain and the nervous system--how strokes affect perception of music, auditory hallucination, etc., Levitin talks about the next layer, i.e. how the rhythm of language is fused with the musical rhythm and the rhythms of our emotions. In my own work as a composer, I am fascinated by all these connections, and enjoy music even more by the self-awareness of the inner workings of sound and perception.

The book also includes excerpts from interviews with Joni Mitchell, David Byrne and Paul Simon, the real authoritative voices of the art of songwriting.

Levitin is also unique in that he now has a 'real job' as research scientist, but I'll bet nothing compares to being directly involved in playing music.

Companion website: www.sixsongs.net ( )

This book I half liked. The part about the songs we love as human beings, the types that run through all sorts of cultures and times. That was great as the author has a wonderfully diverse sense of music and really went to great lengths to insure he was well rounded in talking about songs the world over. There were some great comparisons and some new thoughts. You have to love a book that references the Bible and Lord of the Rings in the same paragraph.
But then the section the subtitle refers to just irritated me. Perhaps I shouldn't have been reading this book with a massive headache, but the evolution sections were annoying. Its not that I have anything against evolution, but using it to explain social phenomena always seems hit or miss to me. Sometimes the examples and assumptions are unlikely to the point of being silly. The one that comes to mind is the thought that groups who buried their dead found an evolutionary benefit because it was more hygienic-so they were a tiny bit healthier than other groups. But weren't these ancient groups nomadic? So there would be just as much hygienic value in leaving the bodies at the old campsite. Or just dragging them off where you couldn't smell them any more. Or what of cannibalistic groups? They wouldn't have to spend the energy digging a great big hole and they would get extra protein. I could come up with questions about this particular theory all day. It was mentioned in the book by the way, in the section on religious songs. I think that is another reason I didn't like the evolutionary posts, the author seemed to be bringing in a lot of behaviour evolution to support his thesis, whether it was relevant or not. ( )