A spellbinding deep-dive into the ever-changing but ever-radical life and career of the Nobel-winning songwriter, from his rural Minnesota beginnings through his sofa-surfing in Greenwich Village beginnings through his tumultuous conversion to Christianity and on...
""One of the most original journalists and writers of our time""—David Remnick
Renowned culture critic Ron Rosenbaum discovered not only the world-changing music of early Bob Dylan, but the man himself in the 1960s, when Rosebaum was a young journalists living in Greenwich Village and working for the legendary alt-newspaper, The Village Voice. Rosenbaum, in fact, lived around the corner from Dylan, and shared mutual friends.
It was the time, and the place, where an essential idea of Dylan's character was formed—that of the whip-smart, angry, too-cool-for-school icon, a kind of James Dean in denim. The raspy voice, not to mention the brilliantly cutting lyricism, only somehow added to his cultural dangerousness.
But Dylan has had many changes of character since then. There was the smoother-voiced country crooner of Nashville Skyline, the white-faced ring-master of the Rolling Thunder Review, the enraged proslytizer who saw Jesus in a Tuscon motel room and converted to Christianity, only to become a Zionist next... and more. And throughtout, Dylan would tell people, ""I'm not that person anymore,"" whatever previous character he was asked about.
In a probing and personal literary appreciation, Rosenbaum examines what Dylan nonetheless revealed about himself in a deep-dive into Dylan's lyrics and writings and his infrequent interviews (including Rosenbaum's own 10-day interview of Dylan in 1978) from throughout his career. What sparked the various conversions and adaptations? And what precisely did Dylan's Jewishness, his mysticism, and his visits with psychics have to do with it all?
As Dylan continues to tour the world nonstop with his band and continues to compose new songs, while refusing to play old songs the same way, Rosenbaum offers a moving and involving portrait of an icon who may have been more constant than it appered.
Ron Rosenbaum is a long-time journalist and columnist with the Village Voice, New York Observer, and Slate. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler, a New York Times Notable book of the year.
