The Passions Of Great Fortune (Lyric Book)

The Passions Of Great Fortune
Roy Harper The Songs Explored
Lyrics and commentary by Roy Harper

Release Date: Sept 14th, 2003
Publisher: Science Friction Ltd.
ISBN: 0-9545264-0-6

320 pages, Full colour, Hardback
Over 250 photos and other illustrations

Designed by Science Friction
Cover design by Harry Pearce
Cover photo by Richard Imrie

Book jacket notes:

Roy Harper has amassed more than thirty albums of original material in his recording career. He has many credits, including recording with members of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and with Kate Bush, among others. He performed at the legendary first Hyde Park Free Concert and was one of the leading lights, along with Bert Jansch, Paul Simon and Davy Graham, of the London Folk Scene of the mid-Sixties. Roy made eight records in the EMI studios at Abbey Road, five of which were top twenty in the UK music charts. He has also won European awards for his music. He is a social commentator and story-teller who has swum against the tide more times than not, and continues to be active in performance. He has lived in Ireland since 1989.

In this book, Roy Harper attempts to conduct you through his songs and their meanings. Within are contained the lyrics to over two hundred songs with varying lengths of prose commentaries on them. His intention is to let the reader into the mysteries of what happens between the inspiration and the finished song, and often to provide a subsequent reappraisal of how particular songs have worked or not.

The book is populated by many of the subjects of the songs, from superstars to one-night stands, from the lonely young boy who walked out into the world at the age of fifteen to a lifetime of relationships and children. Many of the photos in the book were taken by Roy and display a lively sense of humour, an erotic inclination and a need to present the world in the way he sees it. He has always been compelled to do something other than the expected, and this book is a testament to that kind of an approach to his art.