From the genre-defying icon Ben Folds comes a memoir that is as nuanced, witty, and relatable as his cult-classic songs.

Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as “Brick,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” and “The Luckiest,” and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds will be the first to tell you he’s an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Now, in his first book, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. He opens up about finding his voice as a musician, becoming a rock antihero, and hauling a baby grand piano on and off stage for every performance.

In the title chapter, “A Dream About Lightning Bugs,” Folds recalls his earliest childhood dream—and realizes how much it influenced his understanding of what it means to be an artist. In “Measure Twice, Cut Once” he learns to resist the urge to skip steps during the creative process. (“There will be plenty of time for the limitations of the real world to impose themselves on your creation.”) In “Hall Pass” he recounts his 1970s North Carolina working-class childhood and the race and class tensions that shaped his early songwriting, and in “Cheap Lessons” he returns to the painful life lessons he learned the hard way—but that luckily didn’t kill him. Folds also ruminates on music in the digital age, the absurdity of life on the road, and the challenges of sustaining a multidecade, multifaceted career in the music business.   

In his inimitable voice, both relatable and thought-provoking, Folds digs deep into the life experiences that shaped him, imparting hard-earned wisdom about both art and life. Collectively, these stories embody the message Folds has been singing about for years: Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove, because it hurts to grow up, and life flies by in seconds.

Advance praise for A Dream About Lightning Bugs

“A Dream About Lightning Bugs reads like its author: intelligent, curious, unapologetically punk, and funny as hell. This intimate look at his life from his own unique perspective is a rare and unforgettable gift that does what Ben Folds always has done for me as an artist and a friend: encourages me to be more myself, with a lot of swear words.”—Sara Bareilles