Street-Level Superstar

A Year With Lawrence: WINNER OF THE 2025 PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE

Will Hodgkinson

• Publisher: Nine Eight Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785120213
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Popular Culture in Art

WINNER OF THE 2025 PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE
Rough Trade Book of the Year
Uncut Book of the Year
Mojo Book of the Year

A Guardian Book of the Year
A Daily Mail Book of the Year
A Financial Times Book of the Year
A Resident Book of the Year
A Telegraph Book of the Year
A Daily Express Book of the Year

'Will has finally written his masterpiece. I'm glad I could be of assistance' LAWRENCE

Lawrence is the greatest pop star who never made it, his dreams of glory thwarted over the past five decades by bad luck and self-sabotage. At sixty-one, he set off on a new mission: to escape poverty, obscurity and the humiliation of kids at the bus stop laughing at him by writing a smash hit. But what is the cost of a dream?

In 1980, Lawrence formed Felt, releasing ten albums and ten singles in ten years. In 1991, he reinvented himself with novelty-pop outfit Denim. Signed to EMI, riding the wave of Britpop, in 1997, Denim's song 'Summer Smash' became Radio 1's Single of the Week and looked like a sure-fire hit. Then Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. All copies were melted down. Crushing depression, addiction and homelessness followed... but in the face of it all, Lawrence never gave up.

In Street-Level Superstar, bestselling author and journalist Will Hodgkinson follows Lawrence as he rebuilds his life. He gets mistaken for an old lady by an amorous pensioner, is reduced to dragging sacks of 2p coins to his local bank and wanders through London's distant suburbs in search of lyrical inspiration. As they walk together down rain-soaked streets, Will tells the story of Britain's most eccentric cult star. Will he write the greatest song the world has ever known before the year is out? And was it worth sacrificing everything - family, relationships, health, sanity - for art?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Street-Level Superstar
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Chapter One – Temple Fortune
• Chapter Two – On the Road
• Chapter Three – Primitive Painters
• Chapter Four – One Day in Soho
• Chapter Five – Back in Denim
• Chapter Six – Horrible Plastic Windows
• Chapter Seven – Summer Smash
• Chapter Eight – Weren’t You in a Band?
• Chapter Nine – Won’t You Marry Me, Bill?
• Chapter Ten – On the Hot Dog Streets
• Chapter Eleven – Itchy Teeth in Margate
• Chapter Twelve – Until the Life Drains Out of Me
• Chapter Thirteen – No Poor People Allowed
• Chapter Fourteen – Wave of Adulation
• Chapter Fifteen – Coming to a Head
• Epilogue
• Product and Promotion of the Lawrence Brand in the Year 2023
• Acknowledgements
• Photos
• Photo Captions by Lawrence, July 2024