Musical Monday: The Cover Story

The Way Back Machine is going all the way to 1962 for this one, a hit for Bo Diddley, written by Willie Dixon.



"You can't judge a book by its cover." Do you remember learning that? That little lesson goes back about as far as I can remember. We learned it in school. We learned it from our parents. We learned it from book and stories, and we learned it from TV shows from The Brady Bunch to Davey & Goliath. And maybe you even learned it through an actual life lesson instead of from some fable of Aesop's. You can't judge a book by its cover.

And yet, it's funny, isn't it? Publishers spend probably millions of dollars each year trying to get us to do just that, don't they? They try to give us as much a clue about the book from the cover art as they can. Sure, you can't tell whether the book will be any good or not from the cover, but you can usually get a pretty good idea about the genre. How often do you put a book back on the shelf after a quick glance at the cover art? How often does the cover art entice you to read the blurb or take a peek inside?