Coal Black Mornings Audiobook By Brett Anderson cover art

Coal Black Mornings

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Coal Black Mornings

By: Brett Anderson
Narrated by: Brett Anderson, Matt Thorne
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.52

Buy for $14.52

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Listen to the end for an audiobook exclusive: Brett Anderson in conversation with Matt Thorne, author of Prince.

Brett Anderson came from a world impossibly distant from rock star success, and in Coal Black Mornings he traces the journey that took him from a childhood as 'a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat' to becoming founder and lead singer of Suede.

Anderson grew up in Hayward's Heath on the grubby fringes of the Home Counties. As a teenager he clashed with his eccentric taxi-driving father (who would parade around their council house dressed as Lawrence of Arabia, air-conducting his favourite composers) and adored his beautiful, artistic mother. He brilliantly evokes the seventies, the suffocating discomfort of a very English kind of poverty and the burning need for escape that it breeds. Anderson charts the shabby romance of creativity as he travelled the tube in search of inspiration, fuelled by Marmite and nicotine, and Suede's rise from rehearsals in bedrooms, squats and pubs. And he catalogues the intense relationships that make and break bands as well as the devastating loss of his mother.

Coal Black Mornings is profoundly moving, funny and intense - a book which stands alongside the most emotionally truthful of personal stories.

©2018 Brett Anderson (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group
Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Funny
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup

Critic reviews

A remarkable feat, utterly true. This decade's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X and Girlfriend in a Coma)
Coal Black Mornings is a triumph . . . a bracingly honest work raised way above the celeb book fray by Anderson's obvious talent for writing . . . revelatory and delivered with writerly panache (John Harris)
A rich, sad and honest tale (Olivia Cole)
Beautifully crafted and brilliantly well-written . . . his memoir is a thought-provoking meditation on how our childhoods form the people we become, as well as a love letter to London . . . The book is perfect as it is, but there's no question that we need a second volume (Anna van Praagh)
Coal Black Mornings is excellent: evocative, thoughtful and frank; an instant hit in a minor key. Anderson is particularly good on his unusual upbringing . . . as accomplished a writer of elegant prose as he was of narcotically enhanced lyrics about urban ennui (Neil Armstrong)
Few rock memoirs are worthy of critical note. Brett Anderson's richly melancholic Coal Black Mornings was an exception. Eschewing the "coke and gold discs" template, the Suede singer recounts a childhood of bohemian poverty and traces his band's vivid prehistory (George Eaton)
2018 Music Book of the Year: A brilliant account of how growing up can be impossible and full of possibility, all at the same time (Victoria Segal)
All stars
Most relevant  
The ground breaking back story of the very harsh life shaping forces & struggles that forged a sparkling original & epically successful singer song writer’s career.

Success Born Through Fire

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The reading by Brett is great. A very entertaining, well written story that any fan of the band will love.

Any Suede fan will love

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Loved it! So much detail and depth. I read some of my hard copy and listened to other chapters. Loved learning about Anderson’s early life. Writing is so much better than your average celeb memoir.

Gorgeously written and read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Being a massive fan of the Suede music catalog, I had no insight about Brett Anderson's childhood and formative years before the band really took off. I ended up purchasing the Kindle edition and the audiobook so that I absorb as much as possible. This audiobook provided that history and more, as Anderson dives into those years in a uniquely cerebral way. His style reminds me of prose in parts, which is entirely different than any other autobiography that I've come across before. I was able to immerse myself due to Anderson's ability to convey his thought in a descriptive way. I appreciated learning about his family and the experiences that he's been through. The early bits about the band and his friendship with Bernard Butler were the just the icing on the cake for what was a thoroughly engrossing read/listen.

Engrossing and Inspiring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

As a fan from the older days - this was such a delight .
Yes, this is so poignant and powerful to listen as one who grew up on the music. But I will argue that people who are outsiders, authentic and those interested in the depth of the creative process of one of the more original voices in the past few decades would enjoy the origin story .
Brett has such a special gift of observation of the mundane and makes it into a seductive landscape you want to engross yourself in.

Looking forward to the next book and the one after that as well as more beautiful music from the beautiful one.

Beautifully written and narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Brett's story is truly inspiring. What a class act and a pioneer. His prose are quality.

An incredible story of passion and overcoming.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

For Suede fans, it’s an absolute must read/hear. My only wish is that it could have been so much longer. Hopefully we’ll get memoirs from the rest of the band someday.

Wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Having Brett Anderson read this to you is soooo much better than reading the books (and I own both hardcovers!).

Must listen NOT read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A very well written book, as a Suede fan I enjoy it very much, for anyone interested in Brett' s days before Suede and in the very begginin of the band it' s a must read.

Great listening!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.