Seymour Stein’s “Siren Song” Recounts a Career Co-Starring Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and the Smiths
Music is medicine. Hospitalized in 1982—the hole in his heart was infected—Stein listened on a Walkman to a Madonna demo from the producer Mark Kamins. “As penicillin dripped into my heart,” he writes, “I’m sure I was going nuts in that little room.” From his bed, he called Kamins, a hairdresser, and a nurse to help him…

