Today, a few excerpts are available to preview the new book, including Dylan’s takes on two very different songs. (faroutmagazine)
The first is Frank Sinatra’s ‘Strangers in the Night’, a song that Dylan probably sees a good bit of himself inside. “The song of the lone wolf, the outsider, the alien, the foreigner, and night owl who’s wheeling and dealing, putting everything up for sale and surrendering his self-interest,” Dylan writes.
On the opposite side of the musical spectrum, Dylan also takes a look at The Who’s monumental early single ‘My Generation’. “This is a song that does no favors for anyone, and casts doubt on everything,” Dylan writes. “In this song, people are trying to slap you around, slap you in the face, vilify you. They’re rude and they slam you down, take cheap shots. They don’t like you because you pull out all the stops and go for broke.”
“You put your heart and soul into everything and shoot the works, because you got energy and strength and purpose,” Dylan adds. “Because you’re so inspired they put the whammy on, they’re allergic to you, and they have hard feelings. Just your very presence repels them. They give you frosty looks and they’ve had enough of you, and there’s a million others just like you, multiplying every day.”
Townshend is in firm agreement with this analysis, telling Rolling Stone: “Dylan definitely created a new style of writing. Dylan was the one who I think got the message across to The Beatles, that you could write songs about subjects other than falling in love.” It was something John Lennon, perhaps most of all, picked up on right away. He quickly ditched the rock tropes of old and focused his expressions into personalised pop songs.
“When I started to work on ‘My Generation’, I started to work on a Mose Allison/Bob Dylan hybrid of a talking folk song y’know. ‘People try to put us down’,” Townshend sings before adding, “That’s a bit Mose and a bit Dylan. You can take any song of his and find something in it that’s pertinent to today.”
Bob Dylan might be the only musician on earth who is notoriously more difficult to please than Pete Townshend. When the bohemian singer-songwriter once showed up to watch The Who, the guitarist was eager to impress. In BBC Four’s documentary The Who: The Story of Tommy, Pete Townshend recalls how on one night during the tour Dylan showed up to watch them and after the show devilishly only said: “I’ve got another appointment,” then made a swift exit.
Even if Dylan didn’t dig Townshend’s rock opera Tommy, just spending a moment in his presence was enough of a reason to celebrate for him. The impact of Dylan on songwriting is genuinely unparalleled. He showed that there was another way of songwriting. The great folkie proved that it was possible to tell nuanced, intricate stories through the medium of song and, it’s safe to say, the world of music has been a better place in the wake of Bob Dylan.
The Philosophy of Modern Song will also take on diverse songwriters like Nina Simone, Hank Williams, and Elvis Costello, among many others. You can buy The Philosophy of Modern Song upon its release in November of this year.
The Philosophy of Modern Song, will be accompanied by an audiobook edition voiced by Dylan alongside a host of big-name actors.
Nobel laureate and folk-rock legend Bob Dylan will release a new book on songwriting in November, his publisher Simon and Schuster said.(dailymail) Dylan began working on the book in 2010,
The audiobook clocks in at 7 hours, according to the Simon & Schuster website.
The audio is narrated by Dylan himself, along with Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Sissy Spacek, Alfre Woodard, Jeffrey Wright and Renée Zellweger.
Dylan will analyze songwriters such as Stephen Foster, Elvis Costello,Tom Petty, Hank Williams, and Nina Simone. “[Bob] 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,” a press release noted. “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,” it continues. “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.”
