Bob Dylan and The Philosophy of Modern Song

Chapter 15 an unconventional book review

Chapter 15

Bob Dylan The Philosophy of Modern Song 

Welcome to 2023. We are back at the Why and How Book Project hoping this year brings all sorts of book making hijinks. I am hopeful that readers will chime in with questions for future installments but for now I’m going to give you an unconventional book review. 

Cover with Little Richard, Alis Lesley and Eddie Cochran Photograph: Fairfax Media

I’m going to give you my best guesses on how the production for Bob Dylan’s Philosophy of Modern Song went. My guesses might be 100% wrong! But nonetheless, it’s fun to think about. 

It’s like when you buy a house and you find repairs and wonder, “Why did they do that?!” Of course with wisdom you learn that they did the best they could with the money they had, the help they had, and the info they had. Books are like that too. I love to think about books. New books, old books, how they are made and the editorial and manufacturing decisions made. 

Modern Song is published by Simon and Schuster. S&S also published Bob’s first book, Chronicles when it came out in 2004. Here’s guess number one. The contract Bob signed in 2003 for Chronicles included more books to be delivered by a certain time. That was 18 years ago! Publishers rarely make good on any of the stipulations in contracts for products not provided unless an author is caught in some sort of unsavory business. However, 14 years!!! Thus, I think someone concocted this concept to fulfill part of the contract.

Hey, let’s say right up front, I’m not complaining. It’s a fun book. It’s a great ride. This book is great when it's working but only good when it's lazy. What do I mean by lazy? Well, there are parts of this book that don’t push the topic or the author like some of the others.  I know from book publishing that Publishers and Editors don't ask questions of some authors. I always thought that was a shame. Maybe those authors are waiting to be asked something? Maybe they need to be asked something? But once authors hit a certain level of fame they are no longer challenged. At any rate, there are many times in this book I wish someone had said, "Bob, tell me a little more here or try again, this isn't as strong as the rest." The book is in the stratosphere when Bob takes the topic off of the song and into the cultural, spiritual, political ether that the song lives in. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen as much as it could. Like a lot of books that are essentially coffee table books, it’s got some “Well, we got what we got and we need to fill 250 plus pages to make a certain MSRP to garner a certain amount of revenue,” feel to it. 

Let’s keep going. There’s more to unpack. Some of them are great but some of them are generic and they stick out like a sore thumb. The art director for this book probably had a tough few months. Just like with the text content, they did a great job but sometimes the choices seem like they needed to take another whack at it. But time and money are a two headed hydra of pain. I bet they ran out of both. You’d think, “It’s a Bob Dylan Book? Spare no expense!!” Rarely, is that the case.

For the song, “Jesse James” is a Wanted Poster of James. The problem is the way it’s reproduced in the book it looks flat, like it was made on a Xerox Machine. It probably looked fine on the computer screen but in the real book, it falls flat. Yes, the essay is about being Wanted, I get it but I don’t like it. There are more compelling images of James to be had!

On Page 98, for Johnny Ray’s “The Little White Cloud That Cried” there is a picture of a mountain. This feels like a prayer or meditation book. On page 128, the image for the song CIA Man by The Fugs looks like it came from the CIA’s website. I checked it. It didn’t. This is such a punk rock song with so much attitude and the image feels like it was the first result of a Getty Image search. It’s not, though it is a Reuters image. Pg 255, for The Eagles “Witchy Woman” is a picture of Eagles. Maybe AI picked the images for this entry? 

Hey, it happens, and you know what someone else might think they are all of these are great and think other ones in the book are weak. But what really sticks with me and all these images? The real deal is these photos bought at stock image prices make this a 332 page book which justifies $45 a unit. I would have rather had a 128 page book with maybe 3 images in it but that’s $24.99 at most. The Publisher would have nixed that idea. 

Here’s another bit to consider. 

This book is made in the United States. The United States has great book makers but they aren’t cheap, especially not for a 300 plus page 4c book. There is no reason in the world you would make this book in the US unless you were convicted on political grounds or flat out of time. I get the feeling that Bob took every day he had to turn in his copy and then took every hour he had to get back to the publisher with the editor's few notes. Remember, they are thankful to have gotten what they got. There weren’t a lot of notes. 

 At one point they thought they’d print this in China and the margin was gorgeous. Then tariffs gave them pause, then Covid shut downs, then maybe freight costs and gas prices, made that P&L get bleaker and bleaker but then time started running out, then the turn time went down the drain, and the Publisher said, “Quote it in the US” and they got the quote back, plugged it into the P&L and said, “Well, if it reprints a few times, we’ll be good.” 

The book came out November 1st. The time between November to the end of the year is biggest release window in the Publishing industry. Christmas, Holidays, New Year, New You, Gifting, Devotionals, Planners, all of it bank on a big hit in this window. There was a point where if the book was still done in India, Korea, China it was going to miss the window and make 1/3rd of the money for the Publisher. 

Here’s another oddball thing. The back jacket flap copy. I wrote about this a few weeks ago. Here's what I said, If you don’t want to read it, here’s the jist, the back jacket copy is missing. Intentional? Maybe! Probably not. I think someone got in a hurry or someone couldn’t get back-flap copy approved and the drop dead date passed and sent it. Maybe? I dunno. My favorite thought is that ob was playing with the “A man who needs no introduction,” trope. That’s funny, cool, and unlikely. 

Here’s the last thing, the signed copy brouhaha. 

My guess is they tried this and got caught. Yes, it’s done all the time and they got caught because Dylan fans got on line and shared their images and they have high standards of authenticity. As they should, no shame in that. 

Bob says he couldn’t get 5 people in a room because the virus was raging. They printed this book in the US to be in stores Nov 1st. The finished books would be available mid October 2022 at the latest. The virus was not raging in October of 2022. I bet they didn’t sign finished books.

I bet they signed pages called plates that are “tipped into the book block at the binding stage. The images of the signed pages online look to be a specially made page they, it’s not part of the book so I bet this is what they did. 

Not signed books, single signed pages in a stack then loaded into a machine and flowed into the book binding. I’m a little fuzzy on when they would have had to have these. Probably a few days before binding at least, which was probably September. At most, 10-12 weeks before printing at worst. An electronic signature would handle that work very quickly. Like maybe an hour. I bet this seemed super attractive as they went down to the wire to get the book done. 

This is what Bob said.

“With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.

Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately. I’m working with Simon & Schuster and my gallery partners to do just that.”

Good for Bob and S&S to acknowledge this issue, be honest about it and to make refunds. That’s all you can do. “Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes it eats you!” as the saying goes. 

In summary, I love Bob Dylan! I really like the book. It was a gift from my wife for Christmas. This musing is nothing but a fun exercise. I might be totally off base and wrong. Happens to me all the time. I really enjoy thinking about books like this, I hope you will too.