Here are the songs Bob Dylan is writing about in his forthcoming book on “modern song.”
As some of you may already know (and sure, some of you may not care) Bob Dylan is publishing a book this November about his “philosophy of modern song” called… The Philosophy of Modern Song. If you are among those who do care (like me) the table of contents of the Nobel laureate’s foray into musicology were posted this morning on Twitter.
As you can see in the tweet below, “modern” is doing a lot of work here: by my reckoning, Regina Belle’s 1989 song “It Doesn’t Hurt Anymore” is by far the most recent original, with maybe Waylon Jennings’s “I’ve Always Been Crazy” (1978) coming in second… But whatever.
Dylan’s upcoming book: Table of Contents
(one Costello song, @reclinernotes ) pic.twitter.com/xR1XpHLxGx— Jochen Markhorst (@JochenMarkhorst) August 26, 2022
I am particularly excited to read Dylan’s take on, among others, Warren Zevon, Townes van Zandt, and The Clash… but you can keep that Elvis Costello to yourself. Of course, some kind soul very quickly put together a playlist of the songs:
