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.
