A Conversation With Greil Marcus: ‘Mystery Train’ Keeps Rolling at 40
Ever since Greil Marcus published Mystery Train in 1975, it’s been hailed as the greatest book ever written about rock & roll. The world was a different place 40 years ago — Elvis Presley was alive; Robert Johnson was just another forgotten dead bluesman; there were barely any rock tomes for competition. But Mystery Train is still the best and funniest book ever written about America or its music. Marcus takes a few key artists — Presley, Johnson, Sly Stone, Randy Newman, the Band — as a map to the country, making the whole story sound like a crazed adventure anyone can join by reading.
The idea, as Marcus wrote in 1975: “To deal with rock & roll not as youth culture, or counterculture, but simply as American culture.” The book takes in history, politics, philosophy, literature, cars, movies, sex, death, dread, connecting folk heroes from Superfly to Abe Lincoln to Little Richard to Moby Dick. Mystery Train is like reading Queequeg’s tattoos — the whole country’s secrets seem to be in here somewhere.
Generation of fans have gotten their minds blown by it, as I did at a tender age — it was like a “mystery train to your brain,” as Sonic Youth sang. Over the years, one of the strangest things is how much music it’s inspired, from Nick Cave to Wilco to Bruce Springsteen — the Clash echoed it all over their classic London Calling. And since the saga never ends — Elvis, Robert Johnson and crew keep showing up all over our culture — the book keeps growing, as Marcus updates the ever-expanding “Notes and Discographies” section to catch up with the story so far. (The 2015 anniversary edition is definitive, though hardcore fans also prize the 1997 and 1982 versions).
Marcus’ work has kept that same restless spirit — his “Treasure Island” discography in the anthology Stranded; the Lester Bangs collection he edited, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung; the 2014 History of Rock & Roll in Ten Songs; the wildly ambitious 1989 Lipstick Traces, using the Sex Pistols as the departure point for “A Secret History of the 20th Century.” Not to mention his 1970 Rolling Stone roasting of Bob Dylan’s Self-Portrait, with the immortal opening line: “What is this shit?”
Marcus, 70, has two superb new books this fall — Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations, a study of three folk performances, and an anthology of his “Real Life Rock” columns since 1986. In person he’s a virtuoso argument-starter, whether going off about True Detective Season 2 (he loved it) or obscene Elvis bootlegs. He recently spent a Friday afternoon in NYC discussing the long strange story of Mystery Train, including Dylan, Lana Del Rey, the Clash, Barack Obama singing Robert Johnson, Pauline Kael, the car radio and why he loved the Great Gatsby movie.
After 40 years, every edition of Mystery Train is still a brand-new book.
I’m just so lucky that every seven or eight years, they’ve always let me do a new edition, and I get to play around with the back section, which originally was around 25 pages, and now it’s longer than the actual text of the book.