Bob Dylan: the philosophy of modern song [Book review]

The cover of Bob Dylan’s 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways shows a couple dancing. Their heads are cropped off – perhaps they’ve lost them in the moment with each other and the music. To their right, a man leans over, or perhaps into a jukebox, such that his head is all but obscured. A man losing his head in a jukebox: as good a metaphor as any for what Dylan’s new book purports to do. And if Dylan does get lost in the tunes that title the 66 chapters of The Philosophy of Modern Song, each of which engages with a single song, just as often he loses the songs entirely. For example, Chapter 10, supposedly about Harry McClintock’s 1928 recording “Jesse James”, does not mention the song at all but rather holds forth on the idea of the outlaw.