A Dream About Lightning Bugs

"All of that, and so much more, is what musician Ben Folds — an artist of convention-breaking vision and unrelenting creative courage — explores in his lovely memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons ( public library ), which radiates his goofy, brilliant, genuine, deeply empathetic spirit, marked by the kind of amiable self-consciousness with which unboastful genius often shades itself from the harsh stage-glare of attention."

"Reading Ben Folds’ memoir feels like sitting down with an old friend who’s seen it all. Folds dropped out of college, tossed his drums into a lake on campus and paid the bills playing music at a German restaurant wearing lederhosen. Even if you’re not a huge fan, it’s interesting to read the stories behind familiar tunes like “Army” (which was inspired by a conversation he had with his dad about becoming a college dropout). Like his music, Folds’ writing isn’t always graceful, but it’s full of passion and unpredictability. His talent for banging out jams on the piano and transforming personal stories into songs is epitomized in this Tiny Desk concert, which I gleefully recorded and mixed back in 2016."