'A rare and quite beautiful book' Observer

'A poetic, evocative exploration of music and identity' Sunday Times

'A wry reflection on the way in which music weaves its way in and out of childhood' Sunday Telegraph





From the award-winning poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw comes a vivid and engaging portrait of what music means to us as we grow up.



If I had not kissed anyone, or danced with anyone, or had a reason to cry, the music made me feel as if I had gone through all that anyway . . . the music attracted and repelled, organised and disturbed and then let us into the night, clusters of emotion ready to dissolve into sleep.





In The Importance of Music to Girls, Lavinia Greenlaw tells the story of the adventures that music leads us into: getting drunk, falling in love, dying of boredom, cutting our hair, terrifying our parents, wanting to change the world. This is a memoir unlike any other, evoking the furious passion of being young, female, and coming alive through music.



Lavinia Greenlaw has published six collections of poetry with Faber, most recently The Built Moment (2019). Her non-fiction includes The Vast Extent: On Seeing and Not Seeing Further and Some Answers without Questions. She is Emeritus Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Poetry Editor at Faber.