A four-decade chronicle of music, madness, and meaning from one of Belfast’s most respected writers, Belfast music journalist and author Stuart Bailie, has announced details of his new book The Song Is Nearly Over: Music Stories 1985–2025 — a vivid collection of stories, interviews, and reflections spanning forty years of life inside popular culture.
An NME veteran, Bailie has spent his career at the heart of the action, writing with what The Quietus praised as “tremendous skill and authority” — though not everyone agreed, with Paul Weller famously telling him, “You need a f**king slapping.”
Across his career, Stuart has shared unforgettable encounters with Tom Waits, Shane MacGowan, Nina Simone, Björk, Sinéad O’Connor, and Dave Grohl, while documenting the rise of Radiohead, the chaos of Oasis, the road fever of Primal Scream and U2, and the pain and transcendence of the Manic Street Preachers.
The Song Is Nearly Over gathers Bailie’s most striking original pieces and untold stories into one essential volume — a requiem and an action replay of four decades in rock ’n’ roll, told with the wit, grit, and honesty that have made him one of Belfast’s most distinctive voices in music journalism.
Release date: 6 November 2025 (Published by Dig With It)
Price: £15.99
Bailie describes the collection as:
“He charts the rise of Radiohead and messy times with Oasis. There is road fever with Primal Scream and U2. The Manic Street Preachers suffer pain and achieve transcendence.”
The book is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter.
Support The Song Is Nearly Over: Music Stories 1985–2025 here.
BOOK LAUNCH EVENT
Thursday 6 November 2025
The Deer’s Head, Belfast
Interview: Tim Wheeler (Ash)
Live performance: Terri Hooley
DJ sets: Terri Hooley & Stuart Bailie
Part of the Sound of Belfast Festival
ABOUT STUART BAILIE
Stuart Bailie is a Belfast-based music journalist and author who has been active in the music industry for 40 years. His work has appeared in NME, Mojo, Uncut, Q, Vox, Classic Rock, Hot Press, and The Irish Times.
His previous books include Trouble Songs: Music and Conflict in Northern Ireland (2018), Terri Hooley: Seventy-Five Revolutions (2023), 75 Van Songs (2020), and The Ballad of the Thin Man: The Authorised Biography of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy (1997).
Bailie also wrote and narrated the BBC documentary So Hard to Beat (2007), co-founded the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast, and served as its CEO from 2008 to 2016. He currently edits Dig With It, a publication celebrating music, arts, and counterculture in Northern Ireland.
The Song Is Nearly Over: Music Stories 1985–2025 captures four decades of music writing at its sharpest and most soulful — a celebration of words, music, and memory from one of Belfast’s most trusted voices.
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