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December 4, 2022

Famed Music Makers Dylan and Smith Prove They Can Write More Than Lyrics

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan. In a book he began in 2010, the iconic musician and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 offers extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. The book comprises more than 60 Dylan's essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes 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. This is not, however, meant to be a traditional work of criticism. For one, Dylan's writing style is less structured and more observational than critical. He's clearly a fan of the music and he comes across as one, which makes his commentaries all the more enjoyable for fans. As critic Ben Sisario noted in his The New York Times review, the book “is less a rigorous study of craft than a series of rhapsodic observations on what gives great songs their power to fascinate us. Dylan... worked on these for more than a decade, though they flow more like extemporaneous sermons.”

Unfortunately, The Philosophy of Modern Song has also been the subject of less-welcome criticism. In addition to the book's traditional print run, the publisher also produced and promoted a limited run of 900 “hand-signed” editions priced at $599 each and including a letter of authenticity. The problem was that several die-hard Dylan afcionados - already in possession of memorabilia adorned with the singer's signature - questioned that authenticity when they received their very expensive volumes and shared photos online. As it turned out, Dylan did provide his signature, but only once and only to allow a mechanized autopen to "sign" the books for him. The machine did its job perfectly with every copy - which prompted scrutiny from fans familiar with Dylan's uneven scrawl. Apologies and refunds have been provided by all involved; we'll have to see if the old saying "bad publicity is better than no publicity" holds true here.

A Book of Days by Patti Smith. In addition to being a beloved singer/songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Smith is also an accomplished author whose memoir Just Kids won a National Book Award. With A Book of Days, Smith's displays a new creative burst with an idiosyncratic visual collection featuring 365 images and reflections from a single year, inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. Here's some background:

In 2018, without any plan or agenda, Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message "Hello Everybody!" She kept posting - portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith's aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims.

The result is what Kirkus calls a "powerful melding of image and text inspired by Instagram yet original in its execution." For Smith's fans, A Book of Days provides a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer.