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R ecounting a life less ordinary through the framework of 40 U2 songs, will the frontman’s retrospective be rip-roaring enough to join the ranks of the great music memoirs? All will be revealed, but the competition is stiff, as these dozen bestsellers illustrate

Bono is writing his own retrospective. Surrender, due to be published by Penguin on November 1, is set to be one of the biggies this year

John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994)

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (2016)

Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band (2015)

12 Morrissey, Autobiography (2013) Is there a bitchier music memoir? Moz settles lots of scores in a wildly entertaining book that’s more about life and fame than the music. The over-the-top writing is dazzling — much like the singer’s oeuvre. Those seeking a more measured picture of The Smiths should read Johnny Marr’s Set the Boy Free. The great guitarist of his generation is very good on what made the band so special and what drove them apart.

11 Debbie Harry, Face It (2019) The Blondie icon’s story is remarkable and in this moving memoir she looks back on a career that’s had as many downs as ups. She was comparatively old when first achieving fame, but the music her band made towards the end of the 1970s would go on to inspire countless rock-star wannabes. The book is excellent about what happens when the spotlight moves away and although there have been rough times, Harry’s toughness never deserts her.

10 Bob Geldof, Is That It? (1986) There have been a number of excellent Irish music memoirs in recent years: Sinéad O’Connor’s Rememberings and Martin Hayes’s Shared Notes are well worth your time. But it’s the autobiography that the Boomtown Rat brought out a year after Live Aid that will likely live in the memory longest. It’s an unvarnished account of formative years in a very different Dublin to now and the thrills and spills of being in a band that shook up the establishment here and the charts on the other side of the Irish Sea.

9 Elton John, Me (2019) Could there be a more Elton-appropriate title? He may be famously difficult — remember that Tantrums & Tiaras documentary? — but he is one hell of a raconteur. This memoir spans a roller-coaster life in music and is at its most riveting when he writes about the extraordinary impact he made in the 1970s. His songwriting partner Bernie Taupin is a key part of his story — and Elton gives him his due here.

8 Ronnie Spector, Be My Baby (1990) How’s this for a subtitle? ‘How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, Or, My Life as a Fabulous Ronette’. Ronnie lifts the lid on a thrilling, if turbulent, career in one of the all-time great girl groups and gives a fly-on-the-wall account of pop’s earliest days. And then there’s her marriage to the abusive Phil Spector. He may have had a genius for music production, but his monstrous behaviour was there from the start, and it would only get worse after the book was first published.

7 John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994) The Sex Pistols’ and PiL’s main man picked one of the more inflammatory notices that’s said to have appeared in shops and pubs in 1970s London for the title of his uncompromising memoir. The book’s depiction of his early life can be bleak at times, but it’s shot through with his trademark confrontational humour. Ultimately, it’s Lydon’s searing intelligence and curiosity about the world that leaves the most lasting impression.

John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994)

6 Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (2016) Springsteen dropped this doorstopper of a memoir without any prior warning. It’s written in such a conversational style, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Boss was sitting beside you, imparting gossipy stories. Irish readers will be fascinated by his account of playing a legendary show at Slane Castle in 1985 — the crowd was the biggest he had played to up to that point, and for much of the show, he was secretly fretting for their safety.

Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band (2015)

5 Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band (2015) With a title borrowed from a question that journalists plagued her with for years — “What’s it like to be a girl in a band?” — the Sonic Youth founder opens up in a remarkably frank memoir. She is revealing about the music and relationships — she was married to frontman Thurston Moore for years, but then he ran off with a younger woman. The book offers a thoughtful meditation on a contented childhood, young adulthood in the bright lights and her own contribution to one of the great American alternative rock bands.

4 Patti Smith, Just Kids (2010) Patti Smith’s classic debut album, Horses, features an iconic cover portrait taken by the great American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. They were close friends and in this beautiful, evocative book she writes about their unconventional relationship. Just Kids also tracks her early life and fledgling career. The 2015 follow-up, M Train, examines how life changed forever when Horses came out and how the deaths of her husband, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, and Mapplethorpe knocked her hard. The latest instalment, Year of the Monkey, zeroes in on 2016, an especially difficult year for her.

3 Bob Dylan, Chronicles Volume One (2004) You’d expect a memoir from one of the all-time great lyricists and a Nobel literature laureate to be beautifully written — and it is. It’s especially strong on those thrilling early days of Dylan’s career, when he seemed to be able to turn out one classic song after another. He captures life in the bohemian world of early 1960s New York, as well as several people who made it so special, including the Clancy Brothers. It was set to be the first of a series of memoirs — however, 18 years on, we’re still waiting for volume two.

2 Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue (2004) You don’t have to be a lover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be moved by this staggeringly raw autobiography from the band’s frontman. This is a book in which nothing seems to be held back. We learn that he tried drugs for the first time aged 11, and his propensity for hard living intensified as his teen years gave way to adulthood. That he not only survived, but thrived, is testament to his never-say-die, can-do attitude. Kiedis isn’t the only RCHP member to deliver a scintillating memoir: Bassist Flea got in on the act too with Acid for the Children, a remarkable book about a turbulent childhood.

1 Keith Richards, Life (2010) More than any other band, arguably, the Rolling Stones epitomise rock’s brilliance — and its excesses. The guitar god has been there for it all and it seems as though there’s little that he neglectsin this wonderfully readable autobiography. The drink and drugs and girls get a substantial airing, as does his relationship with Mick Jagger. For music lovers, though, it’s his account of the making of some of the most indelible songs in rock history that enthralls most. You feel as though you were in the studio with him.

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