The Lyrics: Since 1962

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Given this it is possible to see Dylan’s songs from that period as works of symbolism. He was using words as the symbolists had; as tools to directly generate an emotional response, in some ways the songs were a prolonged attempt at Synaesthesia. Take the following from Desolation Row as an example

Or take "North Country Blues," in which he sings of a poor rural community from the point of view of a young woman who lives there. Though the mines in her small town are successful--"the red iron pits ran plenty"--the narrator loses both her father and brother in a mining accident, and she decides to leave school to marry a miner. Eventually, the mine is closed completely, and when a representative from the company comes to town to explain why, the narrator records his words: "They say that your ore ain't worth digging / That it's much cheaper down / In the South American town / Where the miners work for almost nothing." Just Like a Woman (multiple endings) (studio: 1976-01-23: "The Night of the Hurricane 2" studio instrument rental, LA, CA, USA) Simon, Jeff. "Jeff Simon: I was fooled by Bob Dylan in a suit. His newest book proves his genius". Buffalo News . Retrieved December 10, 2022. For another example take a line from Visions of Johanna; “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face”. Literally that doesn’t mean anything but the feeling it conjures up in the listener is crystal clear. It’s that sensation that shoots up your spine as you look at a lovers face and lose yourself in every detail, trying to find the particular magic, the ghost of electricity, that draws you to them.

it would be in poor taste, Bob was just the same as any other high school poet until 1962 when he started to be able to write social commentary which didn’t sound embarrassing, and he was on a roll for two straight years, but he couldn’t keep up with the finger-pointin’, his finger just got so tired, so he decided his great subject was the phoniness of American life, the chaos of modernity (to give it a non-Holden Caulfield gloss) and this led him to become Very Poetical – ditching the reportage ( “Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen, she was 51 years old and gave birth to ten children”) for something a whole lot more significant with a big S I’ve been intending to do a list of my favourite Bob Dylan books for a while now. If I’m not listening to Dylan, or watching Dylan, listening to podcasts, I enjoy reading reading about him. I should say this isn’t all the time - just when I’m going through what I call a Bob Phase, which usually happen a couple of times a year. Though they can last for weeks at a time. Author and Xavier University English Professor Graley Herren wrote an essay arguing that Dylan's commentary on Bing Crosby's "The Whiffenpoof Song" is actually a veiled critique of Yale University's secretive Skull and Bones society. Herren sees this critique as being in subtextual dialogue with the book's chapters on Edwin Starr's "War" and John Trudell's "Doesn't Hurt Anymore". [22]

The book contains pictures of Dylan meeting Bruce Springsteen (then being described as The New Bob Dylan) for the first time (in the company of singer-songwriter John Prine) and hanging out with up-and-coming New York punk poet Patti Smith during the Rolling Thunder tour in 1975. Dylan attended Smith concerts before she had a record deal and would take long walks around New York with her. “It was sort of a big deal, because Bob Dylan didn’t really go to see anyone,” Smith has recalled. “He was pretty enigmatic. I related completely to him. His arrogance, his humour, his mergence of poetry and performance.” Don’t expect it to be definitive - it’s alphabetical, but it’s not a comprehensive reference book. Gray has an appreciation for a wide range of music, and I like the randomness of the book - I pulled it off the shelf when I was writing this post and have spent the last half hour reading:This book was published in 1972, so it's amazing to think there are another fifty years of Bob to come (yet). But this is an exceptional account of his life and work up to then, written in the lingo of the times. And because it only covers his life up until just after 'New Morning', there's plenty of focus on his roots and influences, and the years in Greenwich Village are particularly evocative. He also talks to absolutely everyone, including Joan Baez. Just Like a Woman (Vocals Muffled) (studio: 1976-01-23: "The Night of the Hurricane 2" studio instrument rental, LA, CA, USA) Hunter-Tilney, Ludovic (November 2, 2022). "The Philosophy of Modern Song — Bob Dylan's world of sound". Financial Times . Retrieved November 3, 2022.