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 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 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.
