Bob Dylan

Book: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
Audiobook: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Bob Dylan examines 66 of his favorite songs through his own, idiosyncratic perspective in this entertaining new tome.  Dylan adopts the tone of a pulp writer for many of his most fanciful excursions and extrapolations: discussing the My Fair Lady ballad "On the Street Where You Live," he imagines that "you've got a habit, a bad habit.  You fell in love with the hard stuff.  You fell for the foxy harlot, the vamp who lives around here somewhere, and you're silly about her, she's got you hooked.  You're on the street where she lives..."  But he just as soon switches gears, astutely praising lyricist Alan Jay Lerner's three-syllable rhymes ("street before/feet before," "heart of town/part of town," "bother me/rather be").  His alternately illuminating and head-scratching passages bring new perspective to such familiar songs as "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves," "Blue Moon," "Mack the Knife," "Ball of Confusion," "Strangers in the Night," and "Come on-a My House," all rendered with an impish zest.  Dylan's singular voice leaps off the page but if you'd like to hear him read it - along with Helen Mirren, Renee Zellweger, Oscar Isaac, Rita Moreno, John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, and others - there's an audiobook, too.  (Too bad the songs aren't included!)  The Philosophy of Modern Song is distinctly Dylan, embracing all his many contradictions.​