The Philosophy of Modern Song
by Bob Dylan.
Simon and Schuster, 339 pp., $45.00
Bob Dylan’s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, is a kind of music-appreciation course open to auditors and members of the general public. It is best savored one chapter, one song, at a time, while listening to the accompanying playlists, which its readers have assembled on music-streaming platforms. Professor Dylan lectures a little, then you press play.
My friends and I used to frequent this sort of course in college: Listening at Noon, taught by a beloved emeritus professor of music, Henry Mishkin. Besides us, the other students were all retirees. Mishkin would cue up a record of, say, an aria from Verdi’s Nabucco, wait patiently for the beauty to kick in, then enter a…
