The audiobook readers have been revealed for Bob Dylan's first new book in 18 years, titled, The Philosophy Of Modern Song, which will be published on November 8th. Simon & Schuster's website posted the audiobook clocks in at seven hours, with Dylan himself reading, with Uncut reporting chapters being read by such heavyweights as Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Sissy Spacek, Alfre Woodard, Jeffrey Wright, and Renée Zellweger.
The Philosophy Of Modern Song features 60 essays featuring Dylan's musings on other popular musicians — including Stephen Foster, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, and Nina Simone. Dylan has been working on the manuscript for the past decade.
According to the book's official press release:
Bob Dylan 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 nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.
During Martin Scorsese's 2005 Grammy Award-winning documentary, No Direction Home, Bob Dylan touched upon starting his long journey from his humble beginnings in Hibbing, Minnesota: “I had ambitions to set out and find, like, an odyssey, goin' home somewhere. (And) set out to find this home that I, I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was — but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the, on the way, was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all.”