The Philosophy of Modern Song – Dylan Bob (2022)

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One and since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers a masterclass in the art and craft of songwriting. He writes more than 60 essays focusing on songs by other artists, ranging from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello and, in between, from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyses what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, explains how adding a single syllable can diminish a song and even explores how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. Written in Dylan’s unique prose, the essays are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Although they are ostensibly about music, they are also meditations and reflections on the human condition. Nearly 150 carefully selected photographs run throughout the book, along with a series of dream-like riffs that 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 reach the Billboard Top 40 in every decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft over all those years and, like everything Dylan does, represents a momentous artistic achievement.