"It's impossible to write about music" – I once began an interview with a music journalist with that statement. He probably thought that I was being wilfully confrontational, but I was really trying to sympathise with his position of trying to define something that can never be adequately defined due to its essential nature. It's nothing to do with the skill of the writer – it's just an enterprise that is always doomed to failure. Sorry. That said, there have been some pretty noble failures …

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom

by Nik Cohn

Nik Cohn. Photograph: Ulf Andersen/Getty

The original title for this book was "Pop from the Beginning" and that pretty much sums it up. Nik Cohn was only just out of his teens when he wrote it and it's the book to read if you want to get some idea of the original primal energy of pop music. Loads of unfounded, biased assertions that almost always turn out to be right. He went on to provide the inspiration for Saturday Night Fever (Hurrah!) and Tommy (Boo!), but this is still his best book. Absolutely essential.

Tales from Moominvalley

by Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson. Photograph: Per Olov Jansson/BBC

Specifically the story called "The Spring Tune" – the best description I've read about the elusive nature of the tunes that we carry around in our heads and how we must be careful as to how and when we try to "harvest" them. All songwriters need to read this story.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers. Photograph: Leonard McCombe/Getty

I ripped this off royally for the song "Big Julie" from my first solo album. The description of Mick Kelly hearing Beethoven's Third symphony for the first time, while hiding beneath a neighbour's window and eavesdropping on their radio, is still the only piece of writing I've found that comes close to describing the effect that a great piece of music has on the human organism. The rest of the book isn't bad either …

Liverpool Explodes! by Mark Cooper

Liverpool Explodes!

Before he became responsible for Later … and the bulk of the BBC's music output, Mark Cooper wrote this affectionate and hilarious account of the early-1980s music scene in Liverpool and specifically the careers of the Teardrop Explodes and Echo & the Bunnymen. Unfortunately, it's out of print at the moment. You could console yourself by reading 45 by Bill Drummond, which features some of the same characters (and is an immense book in its own right).

The Beatles: Illustrated Lyrics edited by Alan Aldridge

John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr on the video shoot for Strawberry Fields Forever in 1966

This is the first music book I was ever aware of – I spent hours of my childhood poring over the illustrations: some turned me on, some scared me. I was convinced that the photo that accompanies "Strawberry Fields Forever" was of me and my sister. I still get lost in it sometimes.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey. Photograph: Jeff Barnard/AP

There's a section when Hank and Leland Stamper have an argument about jazz and Leland tells Hank that the reason he can't handle John Coltrane is cos it's too "black" for him – then he goes and smokes a joint. It's good to read Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in tandem with this. Kesey is king.

The Favourite Game

by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

We all know Leonard Cohen is The Don: perhaps the ONLY true musician/poet/novelist ever. This is his first novel and there is a great section where he describes driving through the Canadian night listening to Pat Boone singing "I Almost Lost My Mind", which totally captures the essence of teenage years and their infatuation with all things Rock.

Mingering Mike by Dori Hadar

Mingering Mikebook jacket

This is the place where outsider art and record collecting meet. One day a DJ was "crate-digging" – searching through piles of old vinyl in search of hidden treasures – when he discovered a cache of handmade covers with cardboard "records" inside. Mingering Mike had finally been discovered! He was the alter-ego of Mike Stevens, and this book tells his story and reproduces the handmade artwork of the albums that comprised his imaginary career as a soul superstar.

Enjoy the Experience

edited by Johan Kugelberg

Enjoy the Experience

Another outsider experience: a collection of sleeves from "private-press" albums dating from the 50s to the 90s. For a price, anyone could have their album pressed on vinyl and housed in a sleeve of their own design. The results are often hilarious – but, in conjunction with the download links to some of the music featured on the records, you will be introduced to a raw, unfiltered mode of expression often missing from commercial releases. Enjoy, indeed.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by Bob Stanley

Bob Stanley. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

If Nik Cohn's book is "Pop from the Beginning" then maybe Bob Stanley's work should be retitled "Pop at the End". He valiantly attempts to encompass all developments and movements in pop as captured during the age of the 7" 45rpm single. With the death of the singles chart as a national pastime, Stanley seems to imply that some kind of golden age has come to an end. Reluctantly, I guess I kind of have to agree with him. You can prove me wrong if you like, though.

• Jarvis Cocker, Faber editor-at-large, opened the new music department at Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, London WC2 on 12 June.