The Tremolo Diaries

Life on the Road and Other Diseases: SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

De: Justin Currie

Narrado por: Justin Currie

A TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A Mojo Top 5 Book of the Year 2025

An Uncut Top 3 Book of the Year 2025

“A Latter-day Lear. A truly remarkable book” John Niven, The Spectator

“Might just be the finest music memoir of recent years” Independent

“A minor masterpiece” Classic Pop

“Full of life and joy and copious swearing” The Herald

Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie reflects on life as a touring musician in the shadow of his life changing Parkinson’s diagnosis.

It’s 2022 and we join Justin at the doctor’s office, looking down the barrel of a Parkinson’s diagnosis. After concerned fans noticed a tremor in his hand, Currie sought the medical advice which led him to the discovery that would throw his future into uncertainty.

The immediate fallout of his diagnosis is laid bare in Currie’s candid, stream of consciousness voice. A voice that is also by turns poetic, self-deprecating and darkly humorous across a series of diary entries that capture Justin’s innermost feelings — part travelogue, part confessional.

Following a coming to terms with the situation whilst on tour in the U.S, the second half of the story joins Currie in 2024, supporting Simple Minds on tour with Del Amitri. Anger, heartbreak and a looming sense of finality concoct a terse relationship between what once was and what may never be. Yet, page after page, what prevails is the achingly perfect timing of his acerbic wit.

The Tremolo Diaries is a beautiful and unique meditation on illness and aging. It is a twilight years reflection on band life in the 21st Century. It’s a travelogue around the world’s art galleries, parks, bars and sites of natural beauty. And most importantly, it is about love and friendship, adversity and courage, life and loss.

In a first-of-its-kind exploration of Parkinson’s by a multi-platinum selling musician, The Tremolo Diaries looks the dramatic irony of Currie’s affliction in the eye, puts down the guitar, and returns the needle to the start of the song.

Justin's honesty

Loved it. Its rare to find such naked honesty discussing the frailties of one's life. A must read.

Deeply moving

Just as in his music, Justin’s blunt eloquence and humor pervades this touching, tragic and often hilarious travelogue. His speaking voice is as much a balm for the soul as his singing, as he ponders the brutal reality of his current circumstances and the richness of his life’s gifts with equal measures of poetic perspective.

A dark but very amusing tag along with a seemingly reluctant musical giant.

My title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, at least the musical giant part.

Still, there’s not much to say here other than reiterating that it was a real pleasure (in the most dry and sometimes ironic sense of the term) accompanying Mr Currie on his exploits.

I’ve been a fan of his words in the form of lyrics for decades and was happy to hear more of writings even without the usual accompanying music.

A rare thing

Justin Currie gives us access to multiple realms: the backstage world of a touring musician—we go off and on and off the bus with him, pass judgement on sound checks and other bands on the ticket (the great Simple Minds among them), and tour an endless number of major and minor museums and cafes across the US and Europe. More importantly, he finds words, over and over, to describe the scrim between the worlds of the healthy and the sick, and of the small and large challenges of learning to live with his own Great Affliction. Is it bleak? Yes. Is it poetic and beautiful? Also yes. An unflinching memoir of a tremendously complicated phase of a specific life. Currie often frowns on earnestness, but this is brave work, and exceedingly well done.