I was excited to receive a copy of Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song and enthusiastically perused the contents. I am familiar with most of the 66 songs in the book, but I wanted a clear memory of each tune as sung by the performer Dylan associated with it. So, I downloaded a copy of the lyrics and played the song on YouTube before reading Dylan’s analysis.

Readers looking for genuine philosophy in this book will be disappointed, as was I. Instead, Dylan's analysis of the songs in this book consists of gossip, irrelevancies, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and personal interpretations. Dylan provides no rationale for the sample of the songs featured. His comments consist mainly of surface-level restatements of the lyrics using fragmented sentences. Missing are any explanations of the social/cultural milieu within which the song emerged and the influence of the song on society or even on subsequent music.

The title, The Philosophy of Modern Song,/i> in combination with Dylan’s name, is little more than a marketing gimmick. A more realistic title would be Incoherent, Semi-coherent, and Rambling Comments About A Bunch of Songs. ( )

In junior high school, I bought a 45 rpm record and gave it to a girl. I did it hoping she would hear the words as mine, even though the voice was Ricky Nelson’s. In time, I lost faith that the sum of all wisdom was on the hit parade.
Bob Dylan’s Philosophy of Modern Song has rekindled that faith. It is amazing and amusing. He mines timeless truths from an ephemeral art form in essay after essay. To name one example: his riff on Edwin Starr’s “War”.
Once more, I confront the rating dilemma. If I give it five stars, those who know me might smile and say, “of course you did; you’ve been a huge Dylan fan for sixty years.” Should I give it fewer to show I’m capable of critical discernment? By midway through the book, I thought: “it’s no use; there is so much wisdom in the texts; so much creativity in the choice of songs, which for me balanced the familiar with songs I’d never heard of; and the well-chosen illustrations (even Basil Wolverton!) — I give up, everyone should read this.”
So five stars? Not so quick. The women described here come in one of two varieties: assorted witches and seductresses or open-armed, heart-of-gold women with low self-esteem. The experience of women who are neither (or perhaps a little of both) is missing. In this respect, the philosophy expressed here, for all its broad range and depth of insight, is that of a male. For that alone, I’ll knock a star off my rating of what is otherwise an excellent book. Dare I hope for a companion volume from Joan Baez? ( )

I'm thinking the heavy title is deliberately ironic. Bob is just playing DJ. He picks a lot of different things He riffs on the songs. He has more things to say about some songs than others. Some of the things he says are very interesting in a conversational way. But it's always about the songs -he never lets his Bobness get it the way. He's a listener just like you. You ARE supposed to go listen to the songs - I think that's the main idea!
Past getting you to give the a listen I think his intent with this is to discourage niche culture, and he talks about that. I think that's a worthy enough impulse to justify the book's existence. The selection is decidedly cross genre. ( )

I must first say that this is a wonderful book. The layout, the graphic borders, the fonts and (mostly) the terrific accompanying photographs. A topnotch production. As to the chosen song profiles, there is a nice mix of Dylanesque riffing and interesting background tidbits. I was taken aback a couple of times (why?) by a vulgar passage but it didn't affect my overall enjoyment. There is no doubt that Dylan understands popular music and the many ways we interact with it - and how it affects and reflects us. ( )

I found this to be a really interesting book: it was funny, interesting and shocking at times. It made me think and gave some perspectives on songs that had never occurred to me. ( )