If By Magic by Mark McGhee (paperback)

If By Magic by Mark McGhee

If By Magic collects the lyrics and ‘baffling ned punk’ lore of cult Glasgow band The Girobabies from 2008-2025. Frontman Mark McGhee takes us on a journey from the banks crashing right up to the spiralling revelations of our times. Here lies the lyrical lovechild of an 8am job centre queue and a Gallowgate jukebox in the 80s. The reader relives the gigs, the friendships and the mystical moments that made things happen over an 18-year evolution from Ayrshire to international notoriety.

A beautiful, chaotic and cathartic collage, The Girobabies are a constant reminder that revolution happens in a gaff at 5am, fuelled by Bucky, good intentions and a pair of banging speakers. Moving through four eras—Social Not Working, Bus Stop Apocalypse, Who Took Utopia? and Dreams Are Mental—these lyrics make you feel everything you’ve been trying to ignore since Thatcher: McGhee’s words detonate truth in working-class Scots. Part songbook, part memoir, this book is an ode to the strange alchemy that turns life into lyrics.