The Philosophy of Modern Song: curious title, a curious book. If you bought it, as I did, because you are a devoted Dylan fan, hoping to find new Dylan songs inside, or at least new Dylan prose, you will be disappointed. In the photo of three musicians on the cover, none of them is Dylan. The one on the left is Little Richard. Who are the other two? Nowhere are we told their names, nor the names of the people in any of the other photos, except for the sixty-six featured artists, though we will recognize many. The photo on the back cover might or might not be of the interior of Izzy Young's “Folklore Center,” reminiscent of Dylan's early days in Greenwich Village in the Sixties, when, together with my guitarist husband, I got to hear him perform after hours at the Gaslight and knew him well enough...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Book Review|
May 01 2023
The Philosophy of Modern Song
Bob Dylan,
The Philosophy of Modern Song
(New York
: Simon and Schuster
, 2022
), 339
pp.
Belle Randall
Belle Randall has been poetry editor of Common Knowledge since its inception. Her poem “A Child's Garden of Gods” is included in the anthology The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of “Poetry” Magazine. Her books include 101 Different Ways of Playing Solitaire, and Other Poems; The Orpheus Sedan; Drop Dead Beautiful; and The Coast Starlight. A recipient of the Inez Boulton Award of Poetry magazine, she has taught in several creative writing programs, including Stanford University's, where she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow.
Search for other works by this author on:
Common Knowledge (2023) 29 (2): 234–236.
Citation
Belle Randall; The Philosophy of Modern Song. Common Knowledge 1 May 2023; 29 (2): 234–236. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-10568764
Download citation file:
Advertisement
182
Views