In a chapter on Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas,” Dylan also comes to the defense of Colonel Tom Parker for always having faith in his client and being so devoted to him. He heaps praise on superficially innocuous Fifties balladeers like Perry Como (“downright incredible,” he gushes) and Johnnie Ray along with Americana footnotes like Jimmy Wages, who grew up with Elvis in Tupelo, Mississippi, but whose success never even remotely approached that of his friend. It’s part music-appreciation class, part podcast-style rant, and as unpredictable, cranky and largely engrossing as the man himself.Ĭonsidering his recent quasi-Sinatra records, it’s no secret that Dylan loves crooners. But as we’ve learned, things are never simple with Dylan, and The Philosophy of Modern Song can be as much of a surprise and puzzlement as his previous books. Next to them, his third book, The Philosophy of Modern Song (which is out next week), would seem comparatively straightforward: essays on 66 of his favorite songs, billed, on its inner flap, as “a master class on the art and craft of songwriting.”ĭylan himself doesn’t provide any preface or introduction that explains his criteria for choosing a motley crew of songs that range from early country, blues, and MOR pop through “London Calling” and even the Cher vamp classic “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.” We assume these are roughly 70 of his go-to recordings, and that the book is an extension of the music-geek side that emerged in his brief Theme Time Radio Show on satellite radio. And let’s not even start on the whirligig prose in his Sixties head-scratcher Tarantula. In the way it avoided a conventional timeline or stories behind the making of some of his best-loved albums, Bob Dylan’s 2004 book Chronicles: Volume One wasn’t a remotely traditional memoir.
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