If you could choose the last song you’d hear before you died, what would it be? Your favorite song of all time? Perhaps the one you danced to at your wedding? The song from that time you got super stoned and just let the chords speak to you? It’s a hard question that Mike Ayers has thought about for years.
In Last Songs on Earth, Ayers invites 30 musicians to consider what song they would each want to accompany them to those pearlywhite gates. Weaving together their explanations with fun illustrations and poignant interludes—what your song to die to says about you, what songs famous people have died to, etc.—he explores every aspect of deathbed songs. The book offers insight into the minds of famous artists and provides an entry point for considering how integral music is to our own personal narratives.