If by Magic: The Words and Lore of the Girobabies

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.