Musical Road Kills

By Nevard Tellalian

Just Ain’t Write Books     2018

335 pages     Memoir

The Shortlist

Nevard Tellalian is another artist whose name I had never heard before her publicist sent me her memoir. However, I listened to some of her music and was wowed by her marvelous voice and then dipped into her memoir. What a gal! What a life! What love! What chaos!

She says, “Music has lived in every cell of my being since I was a toddler. I feel that it was a gift to be able to work at something I had an undying love for. I also feel lucky to have been plying my trade during a time when most of the pioneers of our nation’s home-grown music were still living and playing.” In that regard, Tellalian had a long relationship with Joey Ramone, but the love of her life was Jeremy John Dennis for whom she wrote the marvelous song, Stay With Me, which you can find here.

Reading Musical Road Kills is a trip. It is like having a conversation with a very animated person. The reader comes to know Tellalian like you would if you were sitting beside her on a long train ride, and she just started talking. There are lots of words written in capital letters; there are lots of sentences emphasized in bold; there are lots of unfinished sentences, lots of . . . . (this). The reader has to be willing to negotiate the territory, but when you do, the stories are incredible and the music reverberates.

One thing I especially appreciated is her assertion that people make music because they can’t live without it. She says,

DON’T YOU KNOW YET?

It’s the music.

It’s the soul mates in music we meet along the way.

It’s the love of it that we share with them.

It’s the Ones that instruct us.

It’s the circle that always takes us back to

The Music.

Like the learning that never stops.

Like a lover you never stop yearning for.

Like the Music.

Nevard Tellalian’s website