Description
Book SynopsisThe 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 in 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 60 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 analyses 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 a
Trade Review‘The acidity, acuity and cynicism in [Dylan’s] writing is to be expected (indeed, welcomed). It is
the love, enthusiasm, whimsicality and lightly worn wisdom that delight too. That, and the sheer depth and breadth of his dogged scholarship and
restless inquisitiveness’ * Sunday Times *
‘
Discursive, unpredictable, but always illuminating. Characteristically Dylan, in fact… It is not just the breadth of Dylan’s musical knowledge on display here, but the depth of his listening. He has an unerring ability to pinpoint what sets a song – or a singer, or a group – apart’ * Observer *
‘Its
lavishly and wittily illustrated 350 pages are an excuse for the great man to write with
joyful zest, piercing profundity and flamboyant imagination about whatever crosses his mind, offering startlingly and frequently laugh-out-loud riffs on art and life… This book is
lightning in a bottle’ * Daily Telegraph *
