Stiff Little Fingers: Song by Song [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Jake Burns (Author), Alan Parker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2003

Stiff Little Fingers emerged in the mid-1970s and gave disaffected youth in Belfast a voice to the troubles that were tearing the province apart. The most successful punk band ever to leave Belfast, they tore up the rulebook of how a band was "supposed" to get a record deal and achieve chart success. Stiff Little Fingers singer-songwriter Jake Burns gives the whole story behind this barrier-busting, record-breaking band. This book includes photographs, a full U.K. and U.S. discography.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd.; illustrated edition edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 186074513X
• ISBN-13: 978-1860745133
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,518,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I want more, April 10, 2005

By 

Eleanor "Slamdancing Rude Girl" (Bangor, ME) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Stiff Little Fingers: Song by Song (Paperback)

Stiff Little Fingers have been a favorite band of mine for a number of years now, mostly for their first two albums, Inflammable Material and Nobody's Heroes. This book has some really interesting insight into what made them tick. It's basically a really long interview between Alan Parker (SLF Superfan), and Jake Burns. It's got some pre-band and pre-first album background on them getting their start, and then takes on a format of basically going through every track on every album and having Jake explain what it was written about, when, and why. They also stop and note lineup changes as they occured between albums and tours and whatnot.

The information it has is really great, as well as easy and fun to read. It definetly made me pull out SLF records that I hadn't listened to in a while, like Go For It or Flags and Emblems, and give them another listen. I really wish it was a bigger and broader book though. I wanted more touring stories, and it would be nice to hear what other folks from the Rigid Digits roster have to say about being from Belfast's best. So it's a good read, but not a comprehensive band bio by any means.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 30yrs after the fact, June 28, 2006

By 

Mati "Mati" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Stiff Little Fingers: Song by Song (Paperback)

Bought this after seeing SLF play in Chicago 06.06. They still deliver. The book is a long interview conducted by a superfan who interjects himself too much for this to be journalism. What is missing is in fact the actual lyrics to the songs they are talking about. There's some true funny bits and some interesting factoids and its a fair read, but overall it's a loosely charted conversation that could have better served the subject.