As a performer, songwriter and actor, Will Oldham has carved a singular path through the worlds of indie folk and cinema. Now the critically acclaimed, enigmatic artist presents his lifes work: the lyrics to more than two hundred songs spanning the 1980s to the present, each with annotations that impart new meaning to his music.

Oldhams aphoristic meditationson death, patience and turning carelessness into a virtueare, like his lyrics, profound, earthy and often funny. They reveal flashes of Oldhams philosophy, the sources and circumstances that inspired his lyrics and the literary ambition of his songwriting. Separated from their aural form, Oldhams lyrics become a new kind of poetrycandid, awkward and wisewith influences as diverse as Rabindranath Tagore and The Mekons.

A book that will delight his longtime fans and inspire young songwriters, Songs of Love and Horror reveals an artist who has captured extraordinary poetry in music despite being "a stranger among my own language".