The Philosophy of Modern Song
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $24.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Written by:
-
Bob Dylan
About this listen
The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One—and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. The audio is narrated by an all-star lineup including Bob Dylan, Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Sissy Spacek, Alfre Woodard, Jeffrey Wright, and Renée Zellweger!
Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty 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. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.
In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.
You may also enjoy...
-
How to Write One Song
- Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back
- Written by: Jeff Tweedy
- Narrated by: Jeff Tweedy
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal wasn't so mysterious and was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That's something that anyone will be inspired to do after listening to Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song. Why one song? The idea of becoming a capital-S songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit.
-
-
Decent
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-09-27
Written by: Jeff Tweedy
-
Chronicles
- Volume One
- Written by: Bob Dylan
- Narrated by: Sean Penn
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One explores the critical junctions in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities: smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough.
-
-
Surprisingly good story telling
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-04-11
Written by: Bob Dylan
-
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You
- A Memoir
- Written by: Lucinda Williams
- Narrated by: Lucinda Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.
-
-
Just what I expect from Lucinda.
- By Lorne Maloney on 2023-09-14
Written by: Lucinda Williams
-
Cinema Speculation
- Written by: Quentin Tarantino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Quentin Tarantino
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining.
-
-
Good But Disappointing
- By Alex Chapman on 2022-11-24
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
-
The Creative Act
- A Way of Being
- Written by: Rick Rubin
- Narrated by: Rick Rubin
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world.
-
-
Better books out there
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-01-26
Written by: Rick Rubin
-
John Prine
- In Spite of Himself
- Written by: Eddie Huffman
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine’s musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine’s best-known songs and discusses all of Prine’s albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records.
-
-
Great information about Prine
- By David on 2020-05-23
Written by: Eddie Huffman
-
How to Write One Song
- Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back
- Written by: Jeff Tweedy
- Narrated by: Jeff Tweedy
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal wasn't so mysterious and was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That's something that anyone will be inspired to do after listening to Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song. Why one song? The idea of becoming a capital-S songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit.
-
-
Decent
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-09-27
Written by: Jeff Tweedy
-
Chronicles
- Volume One
- Written by: Bob Dylan
- Narrated by: Sean Penn
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One explores the critical junctions in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities: smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough.
-
-
Surprisingly good story telling
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-04-11
Written by: Bob Dylan
-
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You
- A Memoir
- Written by: Lucinda Williams
- Narrated by: Lucinda Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.
-
-
Just what I expect from Lucinda.
- By Lorne Maloney on 2023-09-14
Written by: Lucinda Williams
-
Cinema Speculation
- Written by: Quentin Tarantino
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Quentin Tarantino
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining.
-
-
Good But Disappointing
- By Alex Chapman on 2022-11-24
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
-
The Creative Act
- A Way of Being
- Written by: Rick Rubin
- Narrated by: Rick Rubin
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world.
-
-
Better books out there
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-01-26
Written by: Rick Rubin
-
John Prine
- In Spite of Himself
- Written by: Eddie Huffman
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine’s musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine’s best-known songs and discusses all of Prine’s albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records.
-
-
Great information about Prine
- By David on 2020-05-23
Written by: Eddie Huffman
-
Deliver Me from Nowhere
- The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska
- Written by: Warren Zanes
- Narrated by: Warren Zanes
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A. But instead, in 1982, he came out with an album consisting of a series of dark songs he had recorded by himself, for himself. But more than forty years later, Nebraska is arguably Springsteen’s most important record—the lasting clue to understanding not just his career as an artist and the vision behind it, but also the man himself.
Written by: Warren Zanes
-
Testimony
- Written by: Robbie Robertson
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 40th anniversary of The Band's legendary The Last Waltz concert, Robbie Robertson finally tells his own spellbinding story of the band that changed music history, his extraordinary personal journey, and his creative friendships with some of the greatest artists of the last half century.
-
-
A few short years...then onto Malibu.
- By Momma bear on 2019-10-19
Written by: Robbie Robertson
-
Room to Dream
- Written by: David Lynch, Kristine McKenna
- Narrated by: David Lynch, Kristine McKenna
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family - adapted by David Lynch from the print book especially for this audio program. In this unique hybrid of biography and memoir, David Lynch opens up for the first time about a life lived in pursuit of his singular vision, and the many heartaches and struggles he’s faced to bring his unorthodox projects to fruition.
-
-
it's good
- By Nicholas Smith on 2019-01-30
Written by: David Lynch, and others
-
Surrender
- 40 Songs, One Story
- Written by: Bono
- Narrated by: Bono
- Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As one of the music world’s most iconic artists and the cofounder of the organizations ONE and (RED), Bono’s career has been written about extensively. But in Surrender, it’s Bono who picks up the pen, writing for the first time about his remarkable life and those he has shared it with. In his unique voice, Bono takes us from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was fourteen, to U2’s unlikely journey to become one of the world’s most influential rock bands, to his more than twenty years of activism.
-
-
Eloquent with purpose and beauty
- By Amazon Customer on 2023-01-29
Written by: Bono
-
12 Notes
- On Life and Creativity
- Written by: Quincy Jones
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Quincy Jones
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wisdom and musings on creativity and life from one of the world’s most beloved musicians, producers, and mentors, Quincy Jones. 12 Notes is a self-development guide that will affirm that creativity is a calling that can and should be answered, no matter your age or experience.
-
-
Q opens up, so you must listen
- By Anonymous User on 2023-03-02
Written by: Quincy Jones
-
World Within a Song
- Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music
- Written by: Jeff Tweedy
- Narrated by: Jeff Tweedy
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us fall in love with a song? What makes us want to write our own songs? Do songs help? Do songs help us live better lives? And do the lives we live help us write better songs? After two New York Times bestsellers that cemented and expanded his legacy as one of America’s best-loved performers and songwriters, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) and How to Write One Song, Jeff Tweedy is back with another disarming, beautiful, and inspirational book about why we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves.
Written by: Jeff Tweedy
-
It's a Long Story
- My Life
- Written by: Willie Nelson, David Ritz - contributor
- Narrated by: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Unvarnished. Funny. Leaving no stone unturned"...So say the publishers about this audiobook I've written. What I say is that this is the story of my life, told as clear as a Texas sky and in the same rhythm that I lived it. It's a story of restlessness and the purity of the moment and living right. Of my childhood in Abbott, Texas, to the Pacific Northwest, from Nashville to Hawaii, and all the way back again. Of selling vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias while hosting radio shows and writing song after song, hoping to strike gold.
-
-
Shotgun Willie 🩷
- By Anonymous User on 2024-07-01
Written by: Willie Nelson, and others
-
Miracle and Wonder
- Conversations with Paul Simon
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, Paul Simon
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon is part memoir, part investigation, and unlike any creative portrait you’ve ever heard before. Recorded over a series of 30 hours of conversation between Simon, Gladwell, and Gladwell’s oldest friend and co-writer, journalist and Broken Record podcast co-host Bruce Headlam, the conversation flows from Simon’s music, to his childhood in Queens, NY, to his frequent collaborators including Art Garfunkel and the nature of creativity itself.
-
-
All Music Bios must be Audio Books go forward!
- By Bret Granville on 2022-12-14
Written by: Malcolm Gladwell, and others
-
Like a Rolling Stone
- A Memoir
- Written by: Jann S. Wenner
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris, Jann S. Wenner
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rolling Stone founder, co-editor, and publisher Jann Wenner's deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics, and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond. The age of rock and roll in an era of consequence, what will be considered one of the great watersheds in modern history. Wenner writes with the clarity of a journalist and an essayist. He takes us into the life and work of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono, and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few.
-
-
From Jann Wenner's Lofty Perch-- blah blah blah
- By Evangaline on 2023-12-12
Written by: Jann S. Wenner
-
Sellout
- The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)
- Written by: Dan Ozzi
- Narrated by: Chris Abell
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seasoned music writer Dan Ozzi chronicles this embattled era in punk. Focusing on eleven prominent bands who made the jump from indie to major, Sellout charts the twists and turns of the last “gold rush” of the music industry, where some groups “sold out” and rose to surprise super stardom, while others buckled under mounting pressures. Sellout is both a gripping history of the music industry’s evolution, and a punk rock lover’s guide to the chaotic darlings of the post-grunge era.
-
-
Little to do with punk rock history.
- By KD on 2025-01-02
Written by: Dan Ozzi
-
Lou Reed
- The King of New York
- Written by: Will Hermes
- Narrated by: Will Hermes
- Length: 20 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since his death ten years ago, Lou Reed’s living presence has only grown. The great rock-poet presided over the marriage of Brill Building pop and the European avant-garde, and left American culture transfigured. In Lou Reed: The King of New York, Will Hermes offers the definitive narrative of Reed’s life and legacy, dramatizing his long, brilliant, and contentious dialogue with fans, critics, fellow artists, and assorted habitués of the demimonde.
Written by: Will Hermes
-
Let's Go (So We Can Get Back)
- A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc.
- Written by: Jeff Tweedy
- Narrated by: Jeff Tweedy
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few bands have inspired as much devotion as the Chicago rock band Wilco, and it's thanks, in large part, to the band's singer, songwriter, and guiding light: Jeff Tweedy. But while his songs and music have been endlessly discussed and analyzed, Jeff has rarely talked so directly about himself, his life, and his artistic process.
-
-
Magnificent Audiobook by The Great Jeff Tweedy. !!
- By steeler63 on 2022-02-16
Written by: Jeff Tweedy
What listeners say about The Philosophy of Modern Song
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2023-06-04
I loved it
Listening a second time because it is so dense and clever. A fresh perspective on some fave songs and an introduction to many more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lord Ba
- 2023-05-31
So funny, in a philosophical way.
This was a pleasure I'm sure to repeat. Dylan uses many widely different strategies for approaching these songs, so be aware you'll be changing gears. Also, you will want to intersperse enjoying the book with listening to the songs, which are not included with the recording.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sean MacDonald
- 2023-01-02
The Philosophy of Modern Song
Well researched, thought provoking and engrossing. Expertly narrated! Thoroughly enjoyable for anyone with an appreciation for poetry, storytelling and music.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- clueso
- 2022-11-03
I loved this unique presentation
not for everyone
but compelling for music lovers who bought records and hung on every lyric
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rob Cacchioni
- 2023-05-09
Do Not Buy
A waste of time. Rambling pseudo intellectual useless, a incoherent mess of nothing. No philosophy no useful information to glean. Turn around and leave.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!