A couple of emails have asked me how to reserve copies of the Fosca album, the edition that comes with the book. I’ll keep people posted when I know myself.

One mail praises the idea:

Compared with all the bands who put out “limited edition with bonus DVDs” which get watched once and then promptly forgotten, the idea of an actual book is a fantastic one, and very unique. More bands (who are at least worth reading) should stick their lyrics in single releases as well as albums. I was reading an interview with an American artist called Atlas Sound, and his label has a general policy of not printing the lyrics at all, because they are too embarrassingly personal – “like having a close-up of your zit on the inside of your album cover”… I was just curious, given that you are such an erudite individual, and one who invests a lot of time and effort into his words (and words in general), what you make of this practice?

That’s rather interesting. I think there will always be new artists who see their words as important as the melodies. Joanna Newsom is one. But for the most part, it does seem that bands are currently more equated than ever with a tabloid-compatible social life. You’re meant to write songs purely in order to date celebrities. Which is all very nice, but it’s not the reason I wanted to do it. There’s also far more emphasis on the singing rather than the song, thanks to the whole X Factor effect. Plenty of TV shows looking for new talent to sing in musicals, but none to write them. No sign yet of a ‘Lyricist Idol’.

I’m a fan of lyric books. You can get enormous ones for Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart, and there’s been similar volumes published for Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Talking Heads, Shane MacGowan, Momus and Nick Cave. Oh, and two Dory Previn lyric books, mixed in with her poems and memoirs. It’s something of a niche interest: you have to be fan of the artist first, then a fan of reading their lyrics away from the music. So these collections tend to go out of print fairly quickly.

I’ve been agonising over how best to punctuate my own lyrics on the page. Have decided on taking Joni Mitchell’s cue: present them like poems, capitalise every first letter of each line, but take out full stops and commas at the end. Then there’s choosing whether to go for single inverted commas for reported speech, or double, or both according to a rule. It’s all taking me a lot longer than I thought. Have found a couple of previously unused lyrics, though, which haven’t made me squirm in embarrassment. So those can go in.

More from the mail:

Yours is one of the only blogs I bother to read with any regularity, and certainly one of about two non-mp3/music-related ones that holds my interest… On reading your last entry, I was wondering…if it’s so easy to publish the Orlando lyrics, does that not mean that (albeit with a few more complications) you could acquire the rights to the songs themselves and have them reissued on But Is It Art? Records, in the same way that Shampoo have done with their debut recently?

Didn’t know that about Shampoo. Well, as you say, there’s more complications, what with Warners owning the recordings, and their giving Orlando an awfully large advance for the album, only to recoup next to nothing in its sales. Shampoo managed to sell a few records first time round, and are less likely to have left a debt at the label. That tends to make a difference.

I’m aware albums can become lost legends, that death is a good career move, that nostalgia plays a part, but even so. Ultimately, it really shouldn’t be me that instigates an Orlando reissue. It should be someone else, who’s convinced there’s a genuine interest out there.

All I can suggest is that you write to a label that regularly puts out licensed reissues, such as Cherry Red and its many offshoots (eg Rev-Ola), and mention it to them.

I’d better get on with this book.