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Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed
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.
"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.
- GenresMusicNonfictionHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
Published October 21, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 9, 2025
Excellent, contrarian look at the theological and ontological underpinnings of the Bard's work.
Ron Rosenbaum's work is always worth reading - his Shakespeare book, "The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes'' is also amazing, as "Things Have Changed'' amply exemplies. A New Journalist who never got taken in by the gonzo hype, Rosenbaum has always steered his own course, and his voice is always worth hearing.
Ron Rosenbaum's work is always worth reading - his Shakespeare book, "The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes'' is also amazing, as "Things Have Changed'' amply exemplies. A New Journalist who never got taken in by the gonzo hype, Rosenbaum has always steered his own course, and his voice is always worth hearing.
September 11, 2025
(Note: my copy was supplied by NetGalley.)
The author spends the first 100 pages of this extended blog post stating over and over what he hopes his book will accomplish, as though repeating his claims will support his theories. His claim to fame, if he has any, was that he conducted the interview wherein Dylan described the music of his mid-1960s peak as "that thin... wild mercury sound". He goes on to pose that it was his interview that sent Dylan further into the crisis that resulted in his so-called born-again period, which the author repeatedly calls a brainwashing by a cult.
For someone who's supposedly such a scholar of Dylan, he gets a lot of basic facts wrong, spends way too much time taking credit for things, and doesn't once consider that maybe Dylan was putting him on too.
The author spends the first 100 pages of this extended blog post stating over and over what he hopes his book will accomplish, as though repeating his claims will support his theories. His claim to fame, if he has any, was that he conducted the interview wherein Dylan described the music of his mid-1960s peak as "that thin... wild mercury sound". He goes on to pose that it was his interview that sent Dylan further into the crisis that resulted in his so-called born-again period, which the author repeatedly calls a brainwashing by a cult.
For someone who's supposedly such a scholar of Dylan, he gets a lot of basic facts wrong, spends way too much time taking credit for things, and doesn't once consider that maybe Dylan was putting him on too.
November 5, 2025
This is a big sloppy mess of a book full of interesting stuff. It reads as if Rosenbaum cut and pasted a bunch of his writing on Dylan but never made it into a book.
He says several times that this is not a biography of Dylan because we don't need another one. What makes this book special, he says, is that he "singles out the Late Dylan songs that are seldom listened to....". He promises "a close reading of the great Late Dylan songs." In fact, he doesn't get to this "close reading" until page 243 of the 285-page book. He discusses 11 songs in 19 pages, which includes seven pages on one song.
The book is actually a collection of his Dylan thoughts.
In 1977 Rosenbaum interviewed Dylan in California over five days. It was just before Dylan's Jesus freak period. Rosenbaum asked Dylan about his Jewish heritage. He is convinced that the questions may have contributed to Dylan's Christian conversion. He says that one of Dylan's life circumstances that lead to the conversion was "the guy(me) with the yellow legal pads asking questions about his Jewishness." and "I blame myself for weighing him down with unanswerable Jewish questions." Dylan never seems to have mentioned the interview. Rosenbaum also speculates that his interview of Phil Ochs may have contributed to his suicide.
The central theme of the book is an exploration of Dyan's theodicy. "Theodicy" is the study of how or why a benevolent God allows evil in the world. Dylan struggled with this issue and Rosenbaum does an excellent job analyzing the issue. The holocaust, the threat of nuclear war and the civil rights struggle, particularly the lynchings, were all subjects that challenged Dylan.
Rosenbaum was at the first performance of "Desolation Row" in Forest Hill, New York, as he reminds us several times. He has a brilliant take on the first verse.
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown.
The beauty parlors filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They got him in a trance
One hand tied to the tight-rope walker
The others in his pants.
Three black circus workers were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota on June 15, 1920. Dylan's father Abraham was nine years old. He lived two blocks away. Rosenbaum says that is the "hanging" when "the circus is in town". He describes the very common practice of selling postcards of lynchings. He then reminds us that Brown was the color of the Nazi Party. They were the "brownshirts". The "blind commissioners" were the police who took no action. The tight-rope was the noose as the victims hung from the gallows. This is a convincing close reading.
There is a bunch of good stuff here.
Leonard Cohen on Dylan getting the Nobel Prize. "Giving Dylan a Nobel Prize is like pinning a metal on Mount Everest that says, "Best Mountain."
Rosenbaum points out the interesting fact that Dylan never actually specifically criticized the Vietnam War.
He makes a very good case that J. D. Salinger was an important influence on Dylan, and he explores the interesting parallels between them.
He confirmed one of my personal prejudices by arguing that Alan Ginsberg was " a kind of aesthetic con man/parasite in relation to Dylan."
There is allot of intellectual name dropping and digressions. A two-page discussion of Dylan's love songs drags in Tom Stoppard, A. E. Houseman, the Russian poet Catullus, the Provencal troubadours of the 12th and 13th century, C. S. Lewis, Denis de Rougemont and Philip Larkin. A bit much.
There is a couple of pages about his theory on the variant versions of King Lear that don't add much to this book and a discussion of Kierkegaard that just seems to be trying to show off. In a moment of self-knowledge, he admits that there might be some truth in a friend hinting that he is one of those people who think they are heavy.
He also has a habit of repeating lines and points over and over. He tells us at least five times that he hates the term "Dylanologist"; at least three time that he hates "Lay Lady, Lay'; more than five times that he was horrified by a you tube of Dylan preaching to a concert crowd during his Jesus years; multiple times that he saw the first performance of "Desolation Row"; and at least twice that Hannah Arendt originally used the term "radical evil" instead of "banality of evil". It contributes to the feel of this book as a patch up of multiple Dylan pieces he wrote over the years.
My final gripe is that Rosenbaum has some theories that seem silly to me. For example, there should be a law against literary types using quantum mechanics as a metaphor. Rosenbaum does it and it is a mess. He repeatedly argues that the iron ore in the Mesabi Range of North Dakota had some kind of magnetic effect on Dylan. He constructs it from a comment by Dylan about his childhood. It seems silly.
Reading this over I recognize that it is more negative and snarky than it should be. This is a serious guy who has thought hard about Dylan for a long time. His years writing for the Village Voice on the Dylan beat give him important insights into that world. My problem may be that he takes himself very seriously and I do not react well to people who take themselves so seriously.
This is a fairly long discursive appreciation and analysis of Dylan. It is worth reading.
He says several times that this is not a biography of Dylan because we don't need another one. What makes this book special, he says, is that he "singles out the Late Dylan songs that are seldom listened to....". He promises "a close reading of the great Late Dylan songs." In fact, he doesn't get to this "close reading" until page 243 of the 285-page book. He discusses 11 songs in 19 pages, which includes seven pages on one song.
The book is actually a collection of his Dylan thoughts.
In 1977 Rosenbaum interviewed Dylan in California over five days. It was just before Dylan's Jesus freak period. Rosenbaum asked Dylan about his Jewish heritage. He is convinced that the questions may have contributed to Dylan's Christian conversion. He says that one of Dylan's life circumstances that lead to the conversion was "the guy(me) with the yellow legal pads asking questions about his Jewishness." and "I blame myself for weighing him down with unanswerable Jewish questions." Dylan never seems to have mentioned the interview. Rosenbaum also speculates that his interview of Phil Ochs may have contributed to his suicide.
The central theme of the book is an exploration of Dyan's theodicy. "Theodicy" is the study of how or why a benevolent God allows evil in the world. Dylan struggled with this issue and Rosenbaum does an excellent job analyzing the issue. The holocaust, the threat of nuclear war and the civil rights struggle, particularly the lynchings, were all subjects that challenged Dylan.
Rosenbaum was at the first performance of "Desolation Row" in Forest Hill, New York, as he reminds us several times. He has a brilliant take on the first verse.
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown.
The beauty parlors filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They got him in a trance
One hand tied to the tight-rope walker
The others in his pants.
Three black circus workers were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota on June 15, 1920. Dylan's father Abraham was nine years old. He lived two blocks away. Rosenbaum says that is the "hanging" when "the circus is in town". He describes the very common practice of selling postcards of lynchings. He then reminds us that Brown was the color of the Nazi Party. They were the "brownshirts". The "blind commissioners" were the police who took no action. The tight-rope was the noose as the victims hung from the gallows. This is a convincing close reading.
There is a bunch of good stuff here.
Leonard Cohen on Dylan getting the Nobel Prize. "Giving Dylan a Nobel Prize is like pinning a metal on Mount Everest that says, "Best Mountain."
Rosenbaum points out the interesting fact that Dylan never actually specifically criticized the Vietnam War.
He makes a very good case that J. D. Salinger was an important influence on Dylan, and he explores the interesting parallels between them.
He confirmed one of my personal prejudices by arguing that Alan Ginsberg was " a kind of aesthetic con man/parasite in relation to Dylan."
There is allot of intellectual name dropping and digressions. A two-page discussion of Dylan's love songs drags in Tom Stoppard, A. E. Houseman, the Russian poet Catullus, the Provencal troubadours of the 12th and 13th century, C. S. Lewis, Denis de Rougemont and Philip Larkin. A bit much.
There is a couple of pages about his theory on the variant versions of King Lear that don't add much to this book and a discussion of Kierkegaard that just seems to be trying to show off. In a moment of self-knowledge, he admits that there might be some truth in a friend hinting that he is one of those people who think they are heavy.
He also has a habit of repeating lines and points over and over. He tells us at least five times that he hates the term "Dylanologist"; at least three time that he hates "Lay Lady, Lay'; more than five times that he was horrified by a you tube of Dylan preaching to a concert crowd during his Jesus years; multiple times that he saw the first performance of "Desolation Row"; and at least twice that Hannah Arendt originally used the term "radical evil" instead of "banality of evil". It contributes to the feel of this book as a patch up of multiple Dylan pieces he wrote over the years.
My final gripe is that Rosenbaum has some theories that seem silly to me. For example, there should be a law against literary types using quantum mechanics as a metaphor. Rosenbaum does it and it is a mess. He repeatedly argues that the iron ore in the Mesabi Range of North Dakota had some kind of magnetic effect on Dylan. He constructs it from a comment by Dylan about his childhood. It seems silly.
Reading this over I recognize that it is more negative and snarky than it should be. This is a serious guy who has thought hard about Dylan for a long time. His years writing for the Village Voice on the Dylan beat give him important insights into that world. My problem may be that he takes himself very seriously and I do not react well to people who take themselves so seriously.
This is a fairly long discursive appreciation and analysis of Dylan. It is worth reading.
November 23, 2025
I'm trying to read as much "Bob Dylan" nowadays as I can, since I just started giving walking tours of Dylan's old haunting grounds in Greenwich Village (www.freewheelingreenwich.com). I saw a post about this book on Instagram and decided to pick up a copy from the library.
Overall, the book did keep my intention, mainly because I was interested in the topics under discussion - Dylan's early albums, Dylan's evangelical transformation in the late 70s, Dylan's reluctance to accept the Nobel Prize - but I found myself disagreeing with the writer more often that agreeing.
First, he uses a handful of phrases almost obsessively throughout the book. The two that stand out to me the most are "thin, wild mercury" and "a whole other level." The former being a reference to a quote Dylan said during an interview the author had with him in the 70s while he was editing Renaldo & Clara in California and the latter being a reference to Dylan's song "The Ballad of Hattie Carroll," which Rosenbaum uses completely out of context throughout the entire book. This is part of a pattern of him attributing meaning to songs and lyrics that were almost certainly completely unintended.
Second, there are several glaring factual or anachronistic errors in the book. For example, at one point, he claims he listened to Joan Baez's album of Dylan covers, but "hadn't heard [Dylan's] voice until the March on Washington" (94). Joan Baez's album came out two years afterwards. In another section, discussing how Norman Raeban, Dylan's painting instructor in NY in the 70s, was the Yiddush writer Sholem Aleichem's son, Rosenbaum writes, "I'm dubious, but who could really check?" It's well-documented that he was his son - I'm not sure why he would contest that.
Overall, I was surprised at how much of the book was simply the author's personal opinion. The book oftentimes read like someone telling you his personal thoughts about all of Dylan's songs and life decisions. Rosenbaum is one of my "Dylanologists" (he notes how he hates the term and prefers to be called a "Bobolator) who believes he personally uncovered hidden meanings in Dylan's lyrics. Dylan - who has over 1000 books written about him - far more than any other living musician - seems to inspire this quite a bit.
Overall, the book was interesting, but it delved too much into the personal whims and opinions of the author and too often made claims that weren't well-supported. In addition to the excessive use of personal opinion, factual and anachronistic errors, and the clear attributions of meanings to lyrics that were almost certainly unintended, I wouldn't rank this among the essential Dylan commentaries.
Overall, the book did keep my intention, mainly because I was interested in the topics under discussion - Dylan's early albums, Dylan's evangelical transformation in the late 70s, Dylan's reluctance to accept the Nobel Prize - but I found myself disagreeing with the writer more often that agreeing.
First, he uses a handful of phrases almost obsessively throughout the book. The two that stand out to me the most are "thin, wild mercury" and "a whole other level." The former being a reference to a quote Dylan said during an interview the author had with him in the 70s while he was editing Renaldo & Clara in California and the latter being a reference to Dylan's song "The Ballad of Hattie Carroll," which Rosenbaum uses completely out of context throughout the entire book. This is part of a pattern of him attributing meaning to songs and lyrics that were almost certainly completely unintended.
Second, there are several glaring factual or anachronistic errors in the book. For example, at one point, he claims he listened to Joan Baez's album of Dylan covers, but "hadn't heard [Dylan's] voice until the March on Washington" (94). Joan Baez's album came out two years afterwards. In another section, discussing how Norman Raeban, Dylan's painting instructor in NY in the 70s, was the Yiddush writer Sholem Aleichem's son, Rosenbaum writes, "I'm dubious, but who could really check?" It's well-documented that he was his son - I'm not sure why he would contest that.
Overall, I was surprised at how much of the book was simply the author's personal opinion. The book oftentimes read like someone telling you his personal thoughts about all of Dylan's songs and life decisions. Rosenbaum is one of my "Dylanologists" (he notes how he hates the term and prefers to be called a "Bobolator) who believes he personally uncovered hidden meanings in Dylan's lyrics. Dylan - who has over 1000 books written about him - far more than any other living musician - seems to inspire this quite a bit.
Overall, the book was interesting, but it delved too much into the personal whims and opinions of the author and too often made claims that weren't well-supported. In addition to the excessive use of personal opinion, factual and anachronistic errors, and the clear attributions of meanings to lyrics that were almost certainly unintended, I wouldn't rank this among the essential Dylan commentaries.
September 15, 2025
My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this book that looks at the myth, the talent and the life of an artist who changed music in many ways, and in many ways changed the life of the author writing this study.
I was late in my reading life, well past college, when I began to both appreciate and love poetry. Up until then I never felt an interest in the lives or lines of poets, most of them falling flat, or something that I would have to learn AB AB C styling or other ways poems were taught. Which was odd since I really enjoyed music. Supersounds of the 70's was always played in the family sedan on visits to the Grandparents, my brother and I singing along. As I grew older, my father gave me a pair of headphones, my own radio and an allowance to discover new music. I loved songs that told stories, more that Tra-la-la pop, though I still had a soft spot for it. Bob Dylan, however always escaped my interest. I liked the songs covered by others, but Bob, was too much for me. The cult of personality maybe, the long writings on single songs, the worship people had. I am not a joiner, and Bob just didn't seem for me. Until he was. And I had a lot to catch up on. I have read a lot of books, by Dylan, and about the Dylan-experience. I must say this is one the captures everything the man, the myth the music, and impact he had on one person, Ron Rosenbaum. Bob Dylan :Things Have Changed by Ron Rosenbaum is a book about music, Dylan, young Robert Zimmerman, Judaism, Christianity, war, peace, love, rock, roll movies, the past, the future that was too come, and what we have today.
The book is based on a series of interviews, stretching almost ten days during the 1970's for a few hours a day, told over cigarette smoke, Dylan, and tequila, Rosenbaum. Dylan was in flux in many ways. Music wasn't as important to him as his new project making a film about touring music, his life with his wife, and the love of his life. Dylan wanted to be a director, but the movie Renaldo & Clara was too long, too big, and too unmanageable as Dylan was finding his life was becoming. At the same time Dylan's marriage was breaking down, and he was only a short time away from leaving the Jewish faith and becoming a Christian of the hellfire and brimstone type. Rosenbaum spends a bit of the book explaining what he is looking for and trying to convey in the book, and finds himself using his own life as examples of how Dylan music and lyrics affected him in different. ways. As both men were close in age, Rosenbaum is five years younger, both shared many experiences. At one point Rosenbaum doubts he would have been the writer he was without Dylan.
A very different kind of music book, a biography of Dylan, a memoir of Rosenbaum, a discussion of music, Hitler, Shakespeare and other themes that Rosenbaum has written about. I have long enjoyed Rosenbaum's writing since I first discovered him in the late lamented New York Observer. Rosenbaum is an excellent writer, and here he writes about music, and its influences with a skill that many music critics would never think too. Looking to old poems, ideas in Judaism, even little bits of pop culture. This is not a conventional study, following Dylan from birth to Never-Ending Tour, but a book that looks at different topics, different eras, different loves, and different ways of thinking of songs.
Dylan fans will of course love this, but I think regular music fans will also. Rosenbaum has a lot of insight into the music and I leaned quite a bit, and also learned to look at songs that sound so familiar, in a different way. Another excellent book by a writer who has never let me down, an author who has taught me much about writing and how to take in art, media and people.
I was late in my reading life, well past college, when I began to both appreciate and love poetry. Up until then I never felt an interest in the lives or lines of poets, most of them falling flat, or something that I would have to learn AB AB C styling or other ways poems were taught. Which was odd since I really enjoyed music. Supersounds of the 70's was always played in the family sedan on visits to the Grandparents, my brother and I singing along. As I grew older, my father gave me a pair of headphones, my own radio and an allowance to discover new music. I loved songs that told stories, more that Tra-la-la pop, though I still had a soft spot for it. Bob Dylan, however always escaped my interest. I liked the songs covered by others, but Bob, was too much for me. The cult of personality maybe, the long writings on single songs, the worship people had. I am not a joiner, and Bob just didn't seem for me. Until he was. And I had a lot to catch up on. I have read a lot of books, by Dylan, and about the Dylan-experience. I must say this is one the captures everything the man, the myth the music, and impact he had on one person, Ron Rosenbaum. Bob Dylan :Things Have Changed by Ron Rosenbaum is a book about music, Dylan, young Robert Zimmerman, Judaism, Christianity, war, peace, love, rock, roll movies, the past, the future that was too come, and what we have today.
The book is based on a series of interviews, stretching almost ten days during the 1970's for a few hours a day, told over cigarette smoke, Dylan, and tequila, Rosenbaum. Dylan was in flux in many ways. Music wasn't as important to him as his new project making a film about touring music, his life with his wife, and the love of his life. Dylan wanted to be a director, but the movie Renaldo & Clara was too long, too big, and too unmanageable as Dylan was finding his life was becoming. At the same time Dylan's marriage was breaking down, and he was only a short time away from leaving the Jewish faith and becoming a Christian of the hellfire and brimstone type. Rosenbaum spends a bit of the book explaining what he is looking for and trying to convey in the book, and finds himself using his own life as examples of how Dylan music and lyrics affected him in different. ways. As both men were close in age, Rosenbaum is five years younger, both shared many experiences. At one point Rosenbaum doubts he would have been the writer he was without Dylan.
A very different kind of music book, a biography of Dylan, a memoir of Rosenbaum, a discussion of music, Hitler, Shakespeare and other themes that Rosenbaum has written about. I have long enjoyed Rosenbaum's writing since I first discovered him in the late lamented New York Observer. Rosenbaum is an excellent writer, and here he writes about music, and its influences with a skill that many music critics would never think too. Looking to old poems, ideas in Judaism, even little bits of pop culture. This is not a conventional study, following Dylan from birth to Never-Ending Tour, but a book that looks at different topics, different eras, different loves, and different ways of thinking of songs.
Dylan fans will of course love this, but I think regular music fans will also. Rosenbaum has a lot of insight into the music and I leaned quite a bit, and also learned to look at songs that sound so familiar, in a different way. Another excellent book by a writer who has never let me down, an author who has taught me much about writing and how to take in art, media and people.
October 18, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for this advance ARC in return for an honest review.
Trying to take advantage of the renewed interest in Bob Dylan after the wonderful biopic A Complete Unkown, based in part on a much better book about Dylan, Dylan Goes Electric, Rosenbaum writes one of the worst books about Dylan I have read ( or at least tried to read ). This may be only the second book in over a decade that I was unable to finish, and for good reason.
Apparently Rosenbaum interviewed Dylan in 1977 right before he became "Born Again" and elicited the infamous "that thin... wild mercury sound" while eating grilled cheese in the Warner Brothers back lot. I hope you caught that, the first time, because if you didnt Rosembaum will remind you over and over again ad nauseum. He spends the first 100 or so pages talking more about himself than the alleged subject of this "biography" and why this isnt like all other biographies of Dylan. He then talks about what he is going to talk about without ever getting there, and if he did it was long after I gave up.
If you want to learn more about Dylan, there are much better biographies out there, or even try Dylan's autobiography Chronicles: Volume One. If you want to learn about the author and his "love at first cite" experience while watching the Northern Lights, maybe you will be able to finish this meandering nonsense. Frankly "it aint the [biography] you're looking for."
Trying to take advantage of the renewed interest in Bob Dylan after the wonderful biopic A Complete Unkown, based in part on a much better book about Dylan, Dylan Goes Electric, Rosenbaum writes one of the worst books about Dylan I have read ( or at least tried to read ). This may be only the second book in over a decade that I was unable to finish, and for good reason.
Apparently Rosenbaum interviewed Dylan in 1977 right before he became "Born Again" and elicited the infamous "that thin... wild mercury sound" while eating grilled cheese in the Warner Brothers back lot. I hope you caught that, the first time, because if you didnt Rosembaum will remind you over and over again ad nauseum. He spends the first 100 or so pages talking more about himself than the alleged subject of this "biography" and why this isnt like all other biographies of Dylan. He then talks about what he is going to talk about without ever getting there, and if he did it was long after I gave up.
If you want to learn more about Dylan, there are much better biographies out there, or even try Dylan's autobiography Chronicles: Volume One. If you want to learn about the author and his "love at first cite" experience while watching the Northern Lights, maybe you will be able to finish this meandering nonsense. Frankly "it aint the [biography] you're looking for."
November 29, 2025
I enjoy Ron Rosenbaum’s occasional articles in Slate magazine, especially his Billy Joel tirades, so I thought I’d give his Bob Dylan book a go.
Yikes! Does Melville House have no editors assigned to its authors? I can’t recall a book with so many repetitions (some within pages of the other), meanderings (seriously, does Ron suffer from ADD?), factual and chronological errors, dubious theories, large swaths about the author’s life, pretentious literary name dropping, axes to grind, and many more literary offenses.
I’m glad Rosenbaum is a Dylan fan and all (actually, kind of a fair weather fan - he ignores Bob’s work for decades after Dylan’s Jesus phase) but his areas of focus seem insular and have little to do with Dylan’s performances, recent albums or his paintings, sculpture or his book about the philosophy of modern song.
A strange, weird, gnomic book that seems to shrink Dylan rather than engage with the artist on his own terms.
Recommended for….hmm, not sure who.
Yikes! Does Melville House have no editors assigned to its authors? I can’t recall a book with so many repetitions (some within pages of the other), meanderings (seriously, does Ron suffer from ADD?), factual and chronological errors, dubious theories, large swaths about the author’s life, pretentious literary name dropping, axes to grind, and many more literary offenses.
I’m glad Rosenbaum is a Dylan fan and all (actually, kind of a fair weather fan - he ignores Bob’s work for decades after Dylan’s Jesus phase) but his areas of focus seem insular and have little to do with Dylan’s performances, recent albums or his paintings, sculpture or his book about the philosophy of modern song.
A strange, weird, gnomic book that seems to shrink Dylan rather than engage with the artist on his own terms.
Recommended for….hmm, not sure who.
August 1, 2025
It is always interesting to read about Bob Dylan. In this book, Ron Rosenbaum dives into looking at Dylan through his lyrics. This book is a glimpse into Dylan. Well written and creative lens!
I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
December 13, 2025
Money doesn’t talk, it swears. And it swears by asking why I wasted it on this godawful book. I rarely put a book down without finishing it. This book was one such instance. Awful, awful, awful. Where were the editors? Stay far, far away from this book.
December 20, 2025
Unfinished, so really, no stars. Another author trying to read Dylan's mind, and in need of an editor. Writing - bad and repetitious, as if the author hadn't bothered to re-read what he had written. Another in a long line of Dylan books that do no justice to the subject.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews