Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain

(Paperback)

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A TELEGRAPH MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

AN UNCUT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

A RESIDENT MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

In Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain, William and Jim tell their own story for the very first time: an account of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands.

A wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness - and a love letter to the Scottish working-class family - Never Understood is a bona-fide classic of rock 'n' roll literature.

'Here is the story of the Reid brothers' rollercoaster life. Scream if you want to go faster: they'll almost certainly oblige'

Ian Rankin

'Entertaining . . . fraught, funny and occasionally farcical'

The Scotsman

Reviews

Art ignites in the mind and, in the case of the mary chain, churns relentlessly on to the centre stage. perhaps the definitive outcasts-saved-by-rock 'n' roll story * Irvine Welsh *
Forget Phil Spector's wall of sound - The Jesus and Mary Chain didn't know where to stop, and it led to the most exciting sounds to come out of the UK in a generation. here is the story of the Reid brothers' rollercoaster life. scream if you want to go faster - they'll almost certainly oblige * Ian Rankin *
In this entertaining autobiography, William and Jim Reid emerge as both expert chroniclers and good company... Entertaining... fraught, funny and occasionally farcical * The Scotsman *
An epic story about the Reid brothers' war against the world and themselves. An odyssey of rock 'n' roll, class, addiction, self-crucifixion, and resurrection. As diseased and beautiful as their music. I couldn't put it down * Bobby Gillespie *
From the opening line to the last you get it all: addiction, poverty, success, misery, redemption. All told with a brutal, raw honesty and a dry, intoxicating realism * Nicky Wire *
A wonderful book. Jim and William were outsiders among outsiders and being in a band was life or death for them. Somehow against all the odds they created one of the most iconic bands of all time and easily some of the most sublime music of the 80s' * Roisin Murphy *
Funny and moving * Observer *
* The Telegraph *

Author Bio

Brothers William and Jim Reid are founding members of The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Many revere them as true rock 'n' roll anti-heroes.

Ben Thompson is a critic, ghost writer, and radio host.