In his first book Guitar Man, Hodgkinson described how, in his mid-thirties, he took up the guitar. For once perfectly described in its subtitle, this is the natural sequel. By his own admission Hodgkinson can't sing, and even on the guitar is far from accomplished. Both of these facts make his determination all the more laudable.

He is also a music journalist, and that helps him to secure interviews with such titans of the songwriting trade as Patti Boyd, Keith Richards, Bridget St John and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Their shared, surprising view is that you don't actually need any musical knowledge at all to write a song. We are, after all, a mimetic species and in the music business, apparently, “everyone copies everyone”. Hodgkinson is good on the goliards and the other common roots - the 12th-century Carmina Burana or English folk music - on which all draw.

Along his musical odyssey, Hodgkinson produces some fine notes. The late and much lamented John Peel “was planning to start a new record label with a new agenda: to not rip off the artist. (It had another, unexpected agenda: to not sell any records.)” We meet some wonderful, wacky weirdos such as the medieval rock band Circulus on the way. As a whole the book is a bit of a muddle, and would have been much better, as it were, remixed. But it's fun. And that perfect pop song? There are a few already. Maybe Hodgkinson is as well qualified as any to beget one more.

Song Man: One Man's Mission to Write the Perfect Pop Song by Will Hodgkinson
Bloomsbury, £8.99 Buy the book here

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