Bob Dylan's new book to release in November

At almost 81, Bob Dylan continues to surprise his fans worldwide through his multifaceted creativity and intense dedication to music, song as poetry, and painting. The Bob Dylan team made an unexpected announcement on Women’s International Day that sounded like a gift.

For years, Dylan fans have been waiting for Chronicles Volume Two, an official sequel to his memoir, Chronicles Volume One, which came out in 2004 and remained on the New York Times bestselling lists for over 50 weeks. The book also had detailed his struggle with celebrity. But, no, at the moment, all is quiet on the front of that literary genre.

The news is that Mr. Dylan’s artistry is offering a novelty that has nothing to do with an autobiography. The unanticipated new writing, his first book in 18 years, is titled The Philosophy of Modern Song. It will feature Bob Dylan’s unique reflection on the ideas and philosophy behind modern songs.

On International Women's Day, the publisher Simon & Schuster announced the publication is coming out in the fall in the US, on November 8.

Energy is in the air for the great, dynamic American singer-songwriter who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” as stated by the Swedish Academy.

These days an indefatigable Bob is on the road, busy with concerts - the second leg of his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour that takes him through the American South. And while a major retrospective of his visual art is on view now through April 22 at the Frost Art Museum in Miami, the Bob Dylan Center, an innovative museum and archive of his work, is set to open in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 10.

Bob Dylan’s spokesman Larry Jenkins said that Mr. Dylan began writing The Philosophy of Modern Song in 2010. “The book offers a master class on the art and craft of songwriting. He writes over 60 essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster, the father of American music to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyses what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal,” said Jenkins.

Fans and scholars find Dylan’s unique prose mercurial, profound, poignant, and often laugh-out-loud funny. The Bob Dylan team also said that the essays not only are ostensibly about music, “they are meditations and reflections on the human condition.”

In addition, the new book will feature “150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence”.

Despite a brilliant career that is “more of a calling,” as he once said, and an impressive list of plaudits - A Pulitzer Prize, The French Legion of Honor, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom - Dylan remains humble when discussing his colleagues whether it be influences, collaborators or general admiration. He pays tribute to the legends of music that came before him.

The master of rhyming and Symbolism lyrics who released thirty-nine studio albums that sold over 125 million copies has a deep and comprehensive knowledge of American popular music. Bob knows a lot about songs because he is “a song and dance man.”

“Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, you know,” a 24-year old Bob Dylan replied with understatement and humour when asked, “Do you think of yourself primarily as a singer or a poet?”

That was in the midst of a legendary 1965 press conference in a San Francisco TV station where he arrived accompanied by Robbie Robertson and Allen Ginsberg.

Much later, from 2006 to 2009, I remember being mesmerized by listening to his music commentaries as an improvised DJ for his Theme Time Radio Hour, a series of radio shows he hosted on XM Satellite Radio.

He knew every line ever composed by every musician.

Now, this new book as announced sounds like a love letter to the great American songbook from an unstoppable creative genius that is the archivist and even theorist of Americana.

“The publication of Bob Dylan’s kaleidoscopically brilliant work will be an international celebration of songs by one of the greatest artists of our time,” said Jonathan Karp, President and Chief Executive Officer of Simon & Schuster, announcing the new book. “The Philosophy of Modern Song could only have been written by Bob Dylan. His voice is unique, and his work conveys his deep appreciation and understanding of songs, the people who bring those songs to life, and what songs mean to all of us”.

Simon & Schuster acquired World English Rights, audio rights, and first serial rights from Andrew Wylie at The Wylie Agency. The latter firm is handling translation rights. Also, an audiobook will be released by Simon & Schuster. Mr. Dylan will narrate the audiobook with a mix of other voices.

Simon & Schuster’s international companies will publish The Philosophy of Modern Song in Australia, Canada, India, and the UK. Foreign rights will be sold to major publishing houses in eleven countries: Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Denmark, Portugal, Brazil and China.

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