"Bob Dylan - Chronicles, Volume One"

Clif got my Bob Dylan's memoir/autobiography/book thing, Chronicles, Volume One, for Christmas. I've been reading it voraciously over the past few days, and I'm already nearly done. It's a difficult book to put down (Ev came over last night and we chatted until almost 2.30. Then I stayed up for an extra hour or so just reading, even though I had to wake up early this morning and go to work).

The book's structure is confusing at first. Dylan begins with getting signed to Columbia Records, then backtracks to his arrival in New York City, describes his efforts to get into the folk music scene in Greenwich Village and attempting to find his voice; then jumps ahead to late 1969/early 1970 and the recording of New Morning; then he skips ahead to the late '80s and his tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, his rediscovery of a playing style, his discovery of a new singing style, and the results of all that. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the narrative when you look at it that way. Why not the recording of his first few albums? Why not a discussion of his decision to switch to a full electric band in 1965? Why not an examination of his mid-'70s albums, Blood on the Tracks and Desire? I must admit, I was initially baffled.

But this afternoon, I finally started to see the underlying structure and thematic unity of the narrative. I finally see what Dylan's driving at. The whole book has been about his search for his voice, his style, his music. In the first couple of chapters, Dylan describes how he searched and searched for songs to sing, and when he was given the opportunity to inherit dozens of songs from the ailing Woody Guthrie, he turns the offer down and writes his own songs instead. Dylan had some sort of sudden epiphany--he never really gives enough concrete details for you to know what that epiphany was, only tantilizing hints and cryptic allusions--and he knows the elements he wants to include in his own songs. He sees the direction he must take. The chapter on New Morning finds Dylan weary of that direction, listless and uninterested in the music he was creating and making an almost conscious effort to shed his audience. The chapter on Oh Mercy, which I'm in the middle of, finds Dylan realizing he's "over the hill," to use his own phrasing, and feeling like a bit of a washed-out star. By the late '80s, Dylan was ready to throw in the towel--he has no interest in going through the motions anymore, he can't even penetrate his own songs. They held no more meaning for him. Then he had another cryptic epiphany, a sudden spark of understanding about how he ought to perform and what he needed to do. He had renewed interest of a sudden, and was ready to pursue his music again.

This is where I am in the book. It has me enthralled. Seriously, anyone who has even a passing interest in Dylan or his music needs to read this book. It's had me listening to Dylan music virtually non-stop for the past few days.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bob Dylan, "Shooting Star"