It seemed weightier and more serious than anything he was hearing on the radio. Overnight, he shunned his old favourites Little Richard and Fats Domino for singers of songs that he considered to be deeper, sadder, more despairing, and more triumphant than regular pop music. Having created a new persona and invented a wandering minstrel backstory he became a figurehead for the folk movement. He then spent the next 50odd years playing with, and gradually unpicking, this persona. Now in his 80s, Dylan wants to bring us closer than ever to his teenage self.
The Philosophy of Modern Song features 66 short essays on songs Dylan loves, beautifully illustrated with shots of old American record shops, casinos, fairgrounds, movie theatres, and record-pressing plants. Here he is, guards down, eulogising Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night.
It's unlikely, but it's wonderful.
This story is from the November 18, 2022 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 18, 2022 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
No 298 Bean, cabbage and coconut-milk soup
Deep, sweet heat. A soup that soothes and invigorates simultaneously.
Cottage cheese goes viral: in reluctant praise of a food trend
I was asked recently which food trends I think will take over in 2025.
I'm worried that my teenage son is in a toxic relationship
A year ago, our almost 18-year-old son began seeing a girl, who is a year older than him and is his first \"real\" girlfriend.
BOOKS OF THE MONTH
A roundup of the best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror
Dying words
The Nobel prize winner explores the moment of death and beyond in a probing tale of a fisher living in near solitude
Origin story
We homo sapiens evolved and succeeded when other hominins didn't-but now our expansionist drive is threatening the planet
Glad rags to riches
Sarcastic, self-aware and surprisingly sad, the first volume of Cher's extraordinary memoir mixes hard times with the high life
Sail of the century
Anenigmatic nautical radio bulletin first broadcast 100 years ago, the Shipping Forecast has beguiled and inspired poets, pop stars and listeners worldwide
How does it feel?
A Complete Unknown retells Bob Dylan's explosive rise, but it als resonates with today's toxic fame and politics. The creative team expl their process-and wha the singer made of it all
Jane Austen's enduring legacy lies in her relevance as a foil for modern mores
For some, it will be enough merely to re-read Persuasion, and thence to cry yet again at Captain Wentworth's declaration of utmost love for Anne Elliot.
