Not P but Dylan

[Mark Kohut]

Although I walked to my bookstore when I got the
email that the book was in---it was not supposedly available until
Nov 1, I urge you to run, not walk, to your favorite bookstore to buy
*The Philosophy of Modern Song.  *

I say it will surprise you like you never expected. Like seldom.  I say it
is as new
a Dylan as when he went electric at Newport, another metamorphosis
as caught in *I'm Not Here. *The book is an artist's majestic magpie mind
bringing it all together. Observations about songs and their
singers--always the
whole performance (It seems; barely into the book)---that gets deeper into
the song than
the song itself (but can he feel a song, any song)....it sees and feels
"life all around me/us" in each annotation he does.
Talk about how art should matter to life or it is just decoration, he shows
this deeply. Not like
even the best writers on music I've read---but I'm not that well-read in
them---like Marcus
but maybe closest is Lester Bangs as I recall him, but beyond him uniquely,
each annotation makes the song a whole
damn world. It is astonishing, I gasp, like a gawky jerk who can barely
hear.

Did you know he fished, fishing buddy mentioned?  The book is *For Doc
Pomus* (not dedicated to)
and every little difference like that makes one see differently, see Bob as
Bob....see the artist of every word
and detail. Photos and even a Lynd Ward block cut pic from everywhere,
anything, to create his impressions.
Stock photos, album shoots (Rolling Stones* Beggars Banquet*). Cover shot
from the Sydney Herald, yes that
Sydney. Pictorial credits keyed to pages before any are numbered!..love
it...

And then the words: "Perry Como lived in every moment of every song he
sang."....."He walks out on stage, cocks his head to better hear the band,
stands in front of the audience and sings".......Have you noticed how
straightforwardly professional Bob is, just like this, living every moment
of every song he does? .....Bob cocks his head to
tell his band something.

On The Who's *My Generation* (excerpt online at the NYT) ..." this is a
song that does no favors for anyone; and casts doubt on
everything"......??? wow, that far?

"In reality, you're an eighty-year old man, being wheeled around in a home
for the elderly, and the nurses are getting on your nerves."----SAME SONG!!!
This whole piece reminds of one of his early long songs, as the lines roll
out; *118th Dream Song *or all the thrust-forward lines of* Like a Rolling
Stone. *

*Detroit City, *Bobby Bare, 1963..."Your life is unraveling. You came to
the big city, and you found out things about yourself you didn't want to
know, you've been on
the dark side too long."----These words over a Lynd Ward woodcut of a tall
brooding man against small but total smokestack factories.

What. A. Genius. What. A. Book. Another work of art.

PS. He does an entry on an unreleased song!......who else would do this?