The Philosophy of Modern Song: Bob Dylan Hardcover

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. Here’s what you can expect:

• Over 60 essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone.
• Unique analyses of music, including:
  • The "trap of easy rhymes."
  • How the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song.
  • An explanation of how bluegrass relates to heavy metal.
• Essays written in Dylan’s distinctive prose—mysterious, mercurial, poignant, profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

While these essays are ostensibly about music, they are truly meditations and reflections on the human condition.

The book also features:

• Nearly 150 carefully curated photos.
• A series of dream-like riffs that, together, resemble an epic poem, adding 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. Like everything Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.