Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song

"The Philosophy of Modern Song" offers Bob Dylan's 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. Running throughout the book are a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.