Author: Bob Dylan
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.
The book offers commentaries on a range of music, written in the singer’s unmistakable lyrical style.
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 analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes and breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song.
These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny.
The Philosophy of Modern Song is nearly the size of a coffee-table book.
It has been art-directed to its back teeth.