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A review by modern_analog
Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
3.0
Bobby D. candidly Chronicles his early years, putting down stream of consciousness observations and recollections to page. He traces his meanderings as a young man, before he was deemed the voice of a generation, when he spent time in the the Midwest, reading Kerouac and listening to Woodie Guthrie records. Music nerds will devour the passages where he details his influences, telling how he dissected songs he loved to figure out what made them tick.
Outgrowing the stagnant scene in the Midwest, he tells how he picked up and moved to New York to play in beat coffeehouses with other now well-known artists, and how he captured the flashes of inspiration and creativity that became some of his most famous songs. In his own words, "Folk music was all I needed to exist."
The narrative then jumps to later in his life, skipping over his most famous days of touring with Columbia records, to a time when he became disenchanted with the expectations of fame, yearning to be a simple family man and live a quiet undisturbed existence. He describes the pressures of recording material when he wasn't feeling particularly inspired and didn't have anything urgent to say.
Overall, if you're a Dylan fan, this autobiography will give you a peek inside his head, but at times his meandering thoughts are just insignificant tangled memories that you get lost in and sometimes he doesn't exactly help you find the way out.
Outgrowing the stagnant scene in the Midwest, he tells how he picked up and moved to New York to play in beat coffeehouses with other now well-known artists, and how he captured the flashes of inspiration and creativity that became some of his most famous songs. In his own words, "Folk music was all I needed to exist."
The narrative then jumps to later in his life, skipping over his most famous days of touring with Columbia records, to a time when he became disenchanted with the expectations of fame, yearning to be a simple family man and live a quiet undisturbed existence. He describes the pressures of recording material when he wasn't feeling particularly inspired and didn't have anything urgent to say.
Overall, if you're a Dylan fan, this autobiography will give you a peek inside his head, but at times his meandering thoughts are just insignificant tangled memories that you get lost in and sometimes he doesn't exactly help you find the way out.