Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973 - Hardcover

Clinton Heylin is one of the most distinguished writers on Bob Dylan in the world. He is the author of the Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited and the Bob Dylan Reader. He has also written on all aspects of popular culture including The Act You've Known For All These Years: A Year in the Life of Sgt. Pepper and Friends; Despite the System: Orson Welles versus the Hollywood Studios; and Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge. He lives in Somerset. The Songs of Bob Dylan Volume II will be published in 2010.

Prolific Dylanologist Heylin makes his arguably greatest contribution with a painstakingly researched consideration of every song Dylan is known to have written, some 600, all told. Drawing from manuscripts, studio logs, concert recordings, and other sources, Heylin traces Dylan’s career by listing the songs in order of writing rather than public presentation. This first of two volumes collects everything from juvenilia predating his 1961 arrival in New York to his 1974 comeback album, Planet Waves. Even songs that were never recorded or performed are noted, but the major ones receive multipage write-ups that are, in essence, insightful, revelatory mini-essays. Documenting the mercurial performer’s transitions from Guthrie-influenced folkie to raging rocker to laid-back country singer, Heylin, who appears to have heard virtually all of the concerts Dylan has performed during the past 20 years of what has come to be known as the “Neverending Tour,” reveals how vintage songs take on new meanings as they’re recast by their author on stage decades later. --Gordon Flagg