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Paul Weller: The Changing Man | 
 enlarge | Author: Paolo Hewitt
Publisher: Corgi Books
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £4.22
You Save: £4.77 (53%)
New (28) Used (6) from £4.20
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 2853
Media: Paperback
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0552156094
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9780552156097
ASIN: 0552156094
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 what BOLLOCKS !!!! August 19, 2008
MOD. (ireland.)
get your kleenex tissues out for mr hewitt, he has had a rift with paul weller and he wants us all to shed a few tears. what BOLLOCKS.
sorry i bought this bloody shambles of a book.
The Bitterest Pill July 23, 2008
Johnnie Kovacevich (New Zealand)
This book is as much a bitter and twisted account of the demise of Paolo Hewitt's friendship with Paul Weller as it is about the songs he alleges he's discussing. Paul Weller gave Hewitt a year's salary so he could freelance. He took Hewitt to his child's christening when Hewitt wasn't going to go. The Weller family has been kind to the author. Yet on every page he stabs him in the back. In the end you end up sympathetic to Paul Weller. There is not enough about the songs. There are mistakes throughout. A discography would have been useful. It should have been called Sour Grapes or the Bitterest Pill.
 Have you made up your mind? June 3, 2008
ModdyBoy67 (UK)
It's taken me ages to decide what I think about this book; and to be honest, I still haven't really worked out whether it's any good or not. Being an avid Weller fan, I got it hot off the press and zapped through it with gusto!
But while it's very readable, I'd agree with some of the other reviewers who were disappointed that it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know about the man. I suppose my problem is that I don't know what Paolo Hewitt was trying to achieve with this book. Unlike his excellent biography of Steve Marriott "all too beautiful", this work struggles for a clarity of purpose, and by the end of it, I could only surmise that it was almost an apology at having fallen out with a long-term and much-missed friend.
We all have friends with temparement like Weller. People who, whilst they lack Weller's lyrical and musical talents, share many of the same behaviour traits. We learn to manage them if we value them, and benefit from the parts we value, and tolerate the parts we don't. But we don't all write books about them. It would make for fairly shallow reading, which I'm afraid, this book is.
So buy it if you like - I did! Laugh at the bits you know are coming; cringe at some of the others. I suspect Weller is no different from many of us "ordinary folk"; a complex mix of individual parts; inconsistent and flawed. Why should he be the perfect human being just because his music inspired so much of our teenage (and beyond) years?
You know, I suspect Paolo Hewitt still likes Paul Weller. And though I've only ever been lucky enough to say "hello" to him a few times, I still like him, too.
Bitter and Twisted May 19, 2008
Coincidence Vs Fate (Warwickshire)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Paolo starts the book by stating that his 26 year friendship with Paul Weller is over. At the end of the book he tells us that songwriters are a different breed to the rest of us; intense, etc.
Inbetween Paolo Hewitt takes every opportunity to paint Paul Weller in a bad light - he's moody, he's nasty, he's selfish, he's tight-fisted, he's prone to violent outbursts, he's pinched most of his material from other artists...you get the picture.
Well, after reading this book, my opinion of the man has changed...not Weller! I thought Paolo was alright, how wrong I was.
Although I've been a massive Jam/TSC/Weller fan for three decades now, I'm not blinkered or stupid...I know that all of us have our faults and our frailties, Paul is no different, he's human.
His faults make him no less of a brilliant musician and songwriter. His faults do not make his songs worth less. His legacy is still there and always will be, reagardless of whether or not he throws the odd tantrum.
A message for Paul. Don't bother reading this mate, it's rubbish.
Hell hath no fury... March 5, 2008
Barry James Mccarthy
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Hell hath no fury like a sycophant scorned! Anyone who has read "A Beat Concerto", Mr. Hewitt's book on The Jam, or read the booklet notes in The Style Council box set should take a deep breath when reading this revisionist history. Paul Weller is not the great guy, brilliant original songwriter and man of integrity that Paolo talked about in the past. After falling out with Mr. Weller, Paulo has decided that Weller is a bitter, twisted, angry, violent and petty individual who lifted his riffs and lyrics from others and is basically a nasty piece of work. All very well if this were a new writer discovering all this but a bit rich coming from Hewitt's newly acquired poison pen. The layout is interesting for a biography, using Weller's songs to breakdown his career, but it's a difficult read for a fan to have your hero destroyed in such a bitter and sometimes childish manner. (Hewitt's biography of Oasis is a shamelessly childish book for a supposed experienced writer).
I have no doubt that Weller is no angel, but 30 years on from his first single he is still an exceptional talent and writer, if he was the blatant plagiarist that Hewitt makes him out to be he has done an exceptional job covering this up. One would have to question why Hewitt didn't mention this in his book on The Jam or in his 1998 notes for the Style Council box set. It's all a bit suspect, like a spurned lover writing a tell-all about the inadequacies of their former partner just to get back at them. It's a shame, Paolo Hewitt has been around for a long time, with a reputation as a good writer by and large, he may have set out to destroy Weller, albeit with some compliments thrown in so as not to show he's too embittered, but this book is mildly embarrassing for an adult to have written. It's tabloid journalism, I still believe that Weller is up there with the great all time singer/songwriter's so it hasn't changed my opinion but this is a nasty little book, worth only a glance for curiosity's sake.
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