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The Philosophy of Modern Song
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About This Book
The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan's first book of new writing since 2004's Chronicles: Volume One—and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan's unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work's transcendence. In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.
Reviews
"Dylan is clearly a believer, and he will convince readers to follow."
"For all its eccentricities, The Philosophy of Modern Song hits upon some welcome grace notes."
"Many of the choices predate his career, and very few of the tracks that postdate the '60s seem directly influenced by his work."
"(Who among us has not mixed a metaphor once or twice?) ..."
"At the least, the book makes for a hell of a mixtape."
"A joke crawls out from the metaphorical wreckage; Dylan is having fun playing the curmudgeon."
"There is not much strictly musicological analysis, and only occasional (if always intriguing) dissections of lyrical form ..."
"Longtime Dylan followers are accustomed to the peculiar cast that haunts his songs...and they festoon these pages as well ..."
"You can dip in anywhere and swim about in Dylan's brain ..."
"It seems reasonable to hope that an artist of Dylan's magnitude would publish words in solidarity with half of humankind in this critical hour of rights rescinded; rather, he chooses demeaning stereotypes."
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