Greetings. Down the Road with DYLAN – Living with the Songs is my latest book, available exclusively online at BookBaby Book Shop. The book connects 100 of Dylan’s most iconic songs, taken from throughout his career, 1962 to present day, with what was happening in the country and in my own life at the same time. For example, with 1963’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” we hear about the song’s use “at the famous August 28 March on Washington, the venue for Martin Luther King’s historic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” as well as my own standing on the cusp of teenage adventures- “In the summer of 1963, I was a 12-year-old on the move with my family from suburban Philadelphia in Pennsylvania to a small town in South Jersey. I was about to leave the confining world of Catholic school education behind and venture, for the first time, into public school…I was a timid child who found release listening endlessly to Top-40 radio while drawing painstaking portraits of racing cars, presidents, and favored athletes.”. In addition, we learn a little bit about how the song was written and how it works as a timeless anthem, “a simple, yet profound, meditation on the human condition, with our tragic mix of blind bias, killing oppression, and hopeful longing for deliverance and freedom.”
If I’ve piqued your curiosity, I’d be thrilled and honored if you read my book, and if you do, please consider leaving a brief review on BookBaby, as that sometimes motivates others to pick up a copy. Thanks, Steve
Tag: Music of Bob Dylan
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In my newest book, Down the Road with DYLAN – Living with the Songs, I write, ““Bob Dylan has been a deeply intimate part of my life for over 60 years. John Kennedy was still president when I heard my first Dylan song. I’ve spent countless hours listening to his records; I’ve attended numerous concerts, at both ends of the country; and I’ve sung his songs on the beaches, parks, and street corners of Southern California, in assorted wine bars, clubs, private homes, and at youth gatherings in both the United States and Mexico; in church, and with students in the classroom.
In this book, we’ll look at 100 carefully chosen Bob Dylan songs through three distinct lenses— through the lens of music criticism; through the lens of recent American history; and through the lens of personal memoir. It is my sincere wish that there is an educational element embedded herein, but, above all, this book is a heartfelt labor of love, a way for me to express both my understanding of and deep appreciation for the art of Bob Dylan and how it has moved and shaped me and, indeed, all of us, for over six decades. Bob Dylan’s profound creations have been intimately interwoven with the various strands of my personal life and with the life of the wider world we’ve all shared these past decades. My hope is that I have succeeded in capturing something of the timeless, ineffable, beating heart reality hinted at in the songs of Bob Dylan, by looking at 100 of them anew through these three lovingly polished, personal lenses.”
Down the Road with DYLAN is now available exclusively online at BookBaby Book Shop. I’d be thrilled and honored if you read it, and drop me a line letting me know what you think. Thanks, Steve
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Greetings and blessings to all as we near another weekend. Just a quick update about my upcoming book, Lifelong Companion: My Journey Through 100 Dylan Songs, which blends personal memoir, in-depth critical scrutiny of the music of Bob Dylan, and a survey of the salient events of the past 65 years of American history. My hope is that this book will appeal not only to the myriad fans of Bob Dylan who never tire of digging ever deeper into his oeuvre, but also to those who will resonate with the universal elements of my own twisting on the road journey of never-ending personal and spiritual discovery. Everything is on hold, at the moment, as I am waiting to obtain permission to include Mr. Dylan’s lyrics in my text. Hopefully I will get that permission soon so that I can move toward publication, once again through BookBaby who helped me publish my first book, Music Titans: 250 Greatest Recording Artists of the Past 100 Years, which remains available on most online book selling sites. Thanks.
Greatest Recording Artists 