Themes & Schemes:

Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work

The first full-scale account of both the poetics and politics of Dylan's compositions. It studies Dylan, not as a pop hero, but as an artist, as a maker of songs. Focusing on the interplay of music and lyric, it traces Dylan's innovative use of musical form, his complex manipulation of poetic diction, and his dialogues with other artists, from Woody Guthrie to Arthur Rimbaud. The book offers both a nuanced engagement with the work of a major artist and a meditation on the contribution of song at times of political and social change.