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Chronicles, Vol. 1

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 15,884 ratings · 905 reviews

"I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published September 13th 2005 by Simon & Schuster (first published 2004)

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Jan 25, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: muse-ik, thin-white-mercury-sounds

Positively Fraud Street?

I see you on the street
I always act surprised
I say, “How does it feel?”
But I don’t mean it.

"I can't taste your words,"
You said, "Your songs are just lies."
So I cried that you were deaf,
You'd lost the sight in your eyes.

And I said that you were wrong
When you accused me of theft
But all I really wanted to know was
What else have you got left?

No, I never wasted any time,
And I never took much.
I never asked for your crutch,
Now don't ask me for mine.

Well you got up to leave
And y...more

23 likes · like · see review

Oct 25, 2011 Geoff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’m going to do something I try not to do here, since I consider this to be a site about other people’s words- I’m going to ramble on autobiographically for a bit.

I bought this first volume of Dylan’s Chronicles the day it came out in 2004, was anticipating the hell out of it. Back then I was managing a used record store in College Park, Maryland. I studied poetry and creative writing at UMD, big waste of my time, could’ve learned all that on my own, learn more now on my own than I did then anyw...more

16 likes · like · see review

Oct 27, 2011 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essential-music-books, bob-dylan

Conscience impels me to remove one star from my original 5. I'm bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

When this gorgeously written, completely eccentric and endearing memoir came out in 2004 I loved it, and my original review is included below. In the years since then, Dylan fans and commentators have been finding out stuff, and it opens a big can of worms, the worms of

PLAGIARISM

Because, it seems, if the rabid batgooglers and archive monkeys are to be believed, large parts - maybe all - of Chronicl...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful weird book about the influence of cities and sounds, knowing what you want and going for it and getting it thanks to talent, luck, attitude, and meeting the right people. Funny how it emphasizes what no one really wants to know -- "New Morning" and "Oh Mercy" era stuff instead of everything from "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" to "Visions of Johanna" to "Shelter From the Storm" to "Isis." Those songs are hardly mentioned at all -- maybe one or two mentions of "Hard Rain." Otherwise, th...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Tosh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mark my words, this book is going to be considered as an American classic piece of literature. Students in the year 2035 will study it, and young men wearing plastic rain coats will be holding this book as a fashionable prop in the most elegant nightclubs.

As for me, this was such a surprise remarkable read. I didn't expect it to be so great. What makes it so great is Dylan personal observations on the world around him. The way he goes through his frirends' library was one of my favorite parts o...more

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Oct 02, 2008 Dustin rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: already disillusioned Bob Dylan fans

Bob Dylan has given us a meandering, often boring and only occasionally interesting account of some of the formative moments of his career. Two thirds of the book is taken up by the story of how he came to record "New Morning" and "Oh Mercy." Yowzah! He gives only glancing, arrogant mention to the days of his most prolific and brilliant songwriting--which is fine, it doesn't shatter my perception of Dylan to find him arrogant and evasive, but I do take umbrage with the boring minutia of the reco...more

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Oct 22, 2011 nzoz rated it 4 of 5 stars

The better half of this book is about Dylan and folk records. It takes place before Dylan’s first album. To him folk music is a lost art. It has old heroes. Hardly anyone cares about it, but he knows it has power. Dylan is Luke Skywalker and folk music is the force. He’s going to change things with it. His guitar is his lightsaber, he carries it everywhere. he seeks out records and singers to learn their secrets, and we go on this journey with him. the best way to read this would be with youtube...more The better half of this book is about Dylan and folk records. It takes place before Dylan’s first album. To him folk music is a lost art. It has old heroes. Hardly anyone cares about it, but he knows it has power. Dylan is Luke Skywalker and folk music is the force. He’s going to change things with it. His guitar is his lightsaber, he carries it everywhere. he seeks out records and singers to learn their secrets, and we go on this journey with him. the best way to read this would be with youtube or something open so you could play each old folk song he mentions as he hears it in the book and expounds about it and froths at the mouth and his brain explodes with possibilities.

Then we get to the middle section. We skip to a much older, sadder Dylan. He doesn't want to be famous. He doesn’t want to stir the pot. He doesn't want to put out records that are too good! And eventually he forgets how. He beats himself up because he can't. He’s impotent. He’s a sad old man. He can't play his old songs like he used to. He can't write like he used to. He doesn't even remember how he did it. His batteries ran out. He's a Christian now. While young Dylan would chew out a time magazine reporter, old Dylan has dinner with Bono. And praises him too. He praises everybody but himself.

Bono recommends him a producer for a new album who Dylan immediately has friction with. The new producer does horrible mariachi band things with Dylan’s recordings in the studio, he HATES it. You think, yes, finally he's going to stand up for himself... but no, he doesn’t. This thread of narrative that he chooses to give us is about him overcoming his dislike of the new producer, and his methods, and learning to like it. in the end he praises the producer too. Highly. While recording he gets discouraged and goes for a motor cycle ride with his wife, has a long conversation with a weirdo at a shop that I guess was supposed to be insightful but I skipped it because it was boring. This whole part of the book feels like it was written by a completely different person. It’s not exactly bad...I enjoyed reading it, it was very revealing, but this section is where it started to drag for me. Anyway... that album comes out...hmm..yup.

Then we jump right back where we left off. Plucky, young Dylan. Attentive, sharp, inquisitive Dylan, on the road to that record deal. This section is full of detail, full of life, and colors. Young Dylan is a student first and songwriter second. He covers songs. He's really apprehensive about writing on his own, when he does it’s to old, time-tested melodies. Old Dylan is an island. He writes some words on a piece of paper and tries to play something to it. Like a NORMAL person. He doesn’t have muscle memory of a dozen legendary folk songs he just covered, and a rack of records he just marathoned the night before still going through his head. Young Dylan brought all of that to the forefront in his writing to remarkable effect. I didn't see the end coming at all...It just ends. Partly because I was reading on kindle. But that’s okay, It ends on a nice note. 4/5
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Jul 04, 2009 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1960s, celebrity-famous-bio, music-non-reference, ebook-special-coll, my-faves, 2009-reads

"There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him."

God, this is incredible. Completely wonderful. A fucking masterpiece autobiography. Wondrous observation. Surprising self effacement. The wisdom of years. A delicious and well-honed sense of irony. Every sentence a joy. More references in one graph than in whole books. A complete world brought to life. Ruminations and the joy of learning and discovery: Dylan's own and his conveyance of it to us. Dylan's highlights aren't the...more "There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him."

God, this is incredible. Completely wonderful. A fucking masterpiece autobiography. Wondrous observation. Surprising self effacement. The wisdom of years. A delicious and well-honed sense of irony. Every sentence a joy. More references in one graph than in whole books. A complete world brought to life. Ruminations and the joy of learning and discovery: Dylan's own and his conveyance of it to us. Dylan's highlights aren't the highlights of traditional biographers; they're his own and they make you understand his inner thought processes, his mind, his self better than a bland externalized treatment. Another thing that's great about this is how funny it is. Dylan has a wicked sense of humor.

HALFWAY:
A frequent thematic element of the book is Dylan's war with the media and his public image, his battle against the idea that he was/is "the voice of a generation." His evasiveness, elusiveness and parrying, he says, were intentional. The strategy seems to have worked, and yet the elusiveness seems only to have made him an even more mystical and mythical figure, opening him up to even more iconographic treatment by the media, the critics, the sycophants. I'm not sure Dylan fully realizes the backlash resulting from his attitude. It's a complex and uneasy dance, but it has worked for him nonetheless, for, despite charges of "selling out" by various sectors of his critical and fan base through the years, it's hard to imagine an artist who has managed a more solid balance, in general, of critical street cred and commercial success.
In discussing his "middle period", which seems to have begun with "Nashville Skyline" (an album he talks about at length but never mentions by name; indeed, he rarely seems to mention any of his albums by name), he admits to his creative drought, self-doubt and failings.
This is an observational autobiography; a ramble perhaps, but it hangs together due to Dylan's sweet turns of phrase and often profound musings, mostly flavored by an impish bemusement.

Further in:
Dylan ruminates on how he found a self charging General Electric portable radio in the sand on the beach -- built like a tank -- and yet it is broken; this leads to a lovely passage about how all things become broken. And it led to the writing of a song. This book is like that.

FINAL:
This is about what Dylan sees and thinks. And about people he's met and what they said. It's not chronological; it has its own internal logic, and it's an incredible book. Highest recommendation.(less)

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Jun 13, 2008 Cobardon rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Dylan fans, social historians

I went in to this with mixed expectations: sure, the hype was big and the guy is one of the great lyricists of our age, but I'd read his garbled sleeve notes on those seminal 60s albums and excerpts from his wilfully confusing novel 'Tarantula', and there was no huge cause for celebration at him writing some more prose. Further, his ventures into cinema (and painting, in my opinion) have been poor so there was no guarantees that he could 'do' anything other than write some of the best songs I've...more I went in to this with mixed expectations: sure, the hype was big and the guy is one of the great lyricists of our age, but I'd read his garbled sleeve notes on those seminal 60s albums and excerpts from his wilfully confusing novel 'Tarantula', and there was no huge cause for celebration at him writing some more prose. Further, his ventures into cinema (and painting, in my opinion) have been poor so there was no guarantees that he could 'do' anything other than write some of the best songs I've ever heard. Likewise, his interviews are notoriously guarded and lacking in candour, so, as I say, I was not sure what to expect. Would he open up and share his inner self, or would he hide behind cryptic metaphor and write hundreds of pages saying nothing much at all?

'Chronicles' is a triumph. No, seriously and unreservedly, it is. His prose is blindingly brilliant at times, utilising every skill gained over forty years of writing, and the narrative draws you in from the first page. This is an extraordinary life story, by any standard. Told in chunks in a non-sequential manner, it doesn't matter that he eschews standard ideas of chronology. It works all the better for suddenly switching his tale from New York in 61, to his Woodstock retreat in the late 60s, through to his youth in Minnesota and a wonderfully evocative late 80s New Orleans before returning to New York and the eve of his big breakthrough by the end.

Along the way he paints pictures of the sort of character that has always inhabited his best songs, only this time putting real names in place. Not only do we get cameos by Bono, John Wayne, David Crosby ('an architect of harmony' declares Dylan) and so on, but the kind of fabulously memorable individual like a gift shop owner in Louisiana who exchanges dialogue with the subject. There are many such figures dotted in the book, brought splendidly to life. We are left with a wonder at them, but also whether Dylan has used poetic licence throughout such long quoted passages. Is he a reliable narrator? Is that the point? (He outlines an exchange with a PR guy very early on where he basically lies throughout about himself, giving many of the myths that stuck about him for years. Perhaps he's letting us know the form.)

Yet, there is not the level of obfuscation you might have expected. Dylan opens his life up like never before, about his relationships, his dreams, his fame, his music. Sure, there are huge gaps about key figures - notably little on Woody Guthrie the person, rather than the ideal - but then maybe he's saving all that for the sequel. There are, we assume, plenty of insights on Dylan the man and what makes him what he is. He tells us of his epiphanies regarding Guthrie, Brecht and Robert Johnson, and his sincerity and discernable influence from those figures make that sort of detail hard to doubt. He's open about Suze Rotolo (and Joan Baez to some extent, hinting more than he tells, all the same), about how much he is in debt to key figures of the early 60s New York folk and Beats scene, about his disdain for fame and his reputation as 'spokesman of a generation' that he tried so hard to destroy in the mid 60s.

Best of all he's open about his music. The details of his writing then recording of 'Oh Mercy' with Daniel Lanois in New Orleans are insightful as anyone could have hoped, and while telling us about that music he brings that famous city to life magnificently. In each location he does a fabulous job of transporting the reader to his side, to see, smell, feel and hear his life through his own eyes, whether it be the dingy room he rents in freezing New York City or the foghorns of Hibbing and Duluth.

His writing is economical and brilliant, employing the gift for metaphor and unusual depth of observation that has served him so well in his best song lyrics.

To summarise: if you are a fan of Dylan, reading this is essential. For anyone interested in his life and times, it's a fine read in any case, fan or not.
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Apr 09, 2008 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: True Bob Dylan fans & fans of any artists in general

Know this, readers. Bob Dylan has ALWAYS and will forever continue (probably even at his death) to do things HIS OWN WAY!

I read some of the reviews for this book. First off, ignore all those who are not even fans of Bob Dylan or are the ones that wish he would sing "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Tangled up in Blue." Get over it.

What I saw in this book was his inspiration. You will NEVER get this in any biography about any artist. Or at least rarely. Biographies and even autobiographies are a way fo...more Know this, readers. Bob Dylan has ALWAYS and will forever continue (probably even at his death) to do things HIS OWN WAY!

I read some of the reviews for this book. First off, ignore all those who are not even fans of Bob Dylan or are the ones that wish he would sing "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Tangled up in Blue." Get over it.

What I saw in this book was his inspiration. You will NEVER get this in any biography about any artist. Or at least rarely. Biographies and even autobiographies are a way for the "experts" to place the person in history. Dylan is more than willing to allow the music critics and even historians to do that (yes he acknowledges that he is a historical figure--and he is pretty humbled by it I assume). Just don't expect him to really care. They can pour through volumes of interviews (those that he gave that revealed something of the "inner-Bob") and articles and talk to hundreds of friends and relatives. They will still never KNOW the subject completely. Bob Dylan proved that with this book.

The book is "rambling" for some, but I found this stream-of-consciousness style to be refreshing and definitely influenced by Jack Kerouac or Woody Guthrie--who he has been most compared. His story telling reminded my of a grandfather or the fascinating older man down the neighborhood who would entertain you with stories. Yes they "rambled" and digressed into other subjects. But they were REAL and true and revealed something about the speaker.

I am sure when the book came out almost 4 years ago, people thought "FINALLY he will give us a true picture of his life and influences!" And then they were bitterly disappointed. Bob Dylan has always done things his owne way and refuses to be pigeon-holed into wherevever even his fans want him to be. That is what makes him THE artist for the last half of 20th Century and still into today! He wants true freedom--freedom from being who even millions of people demand him to be. A freedom we all should strive for.

I look forward to reading Volume II and III or IV if ever writes them.

And, finally, CONGRATS on the PULITZER PRIZE, BOB! You were overdue, but I hope your best stuff is still to come and you can collectively tell the music critics and fans that haven't let go of the '60's to shove it! (less)

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Dec 09, 2007 Jenna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-and-biography

In this autobiography, the poet from Minnesota arrives in New York City as a young man, ready to launch his career. A saxifrage bursting into bloom. What qualities did Dylan have, aside from his knack for words and music, that account for his success? His self-assurance. His faith in his own methods. His strange sense of kinship with all great visionaries and revolutionaries in history (generals, philosophers, men of faith, men of science, you name it; he says, "It was like they were living in m...more In this autobiography, the poet from Minnesota arrives in New York City as a young man, ready to launch his career. A saxifrage bursting into bloom. What qualities did Dylan have, aside from his knack for words and music, that account for his success? His self-assurance. His faith in his own methods. His strange sense of kinship with all great visionaries and revolutionaries in history (generals, philosophers, men of faith, men of science, you name it; he says, "It was like they were living in my backyard"). His prescient conviction that he would someday be a great mover and shaker himself. His strong sense of history. His equally strong sense of destiny (unusual for a man living in our scientific-minded times, in which it seems no serious intellectual believes in Fate or Destiny anymore). And -- most importantly, I think -- his emphasis on the importance of having *vision* (a word we rarely hear in discussions of poets or musicians anymore). On his first encounter with a singer who was later to help him jump-start his career, he writes, "I saw him walking towards me in the frosty silence... It was like the wind was blowing him my way." It is Dylan's rather reactionary belief that destiny *does* play a role in our lives, his belief that the wind *does* blow mystical revelations our way and his receptiveness to these revelations, I think, that was the keystone of his unique success.

For such a highly politicized figure, Dylan devotes surprisingly few words in this book to discussing the sociopolitical issues of his time. He doesn't think of his songs as "protest songs," he says; instead, he prefers to think of them as "rebel ballads." This nomenclature emphasizes the heroically rebellious personalities of the *characters* in his songs, rather than the political *messages* that the songs incidentally convey. (This could be a useful lesson for all aspiring writers of political poetry: if you want to avoid accidentally crossing the hazy line from political poetry into political propaganda, keep your focus on your characters rather than on your message.) Indeed, one of the most striking things about this book is how character-centered it is, and how vivid all the characters are. Throughout his life, Dylan surrounded himself with people with strong iconic personalities, the kind of people whom you could write a good strong folk-ballad about. I'm guessing that this was another of the secrets to his greatness.

Though his diction here isn't anywhere near as poetic as you might expect after hearing his song lyrics (I guess it's unrealistic to expect a writer to be able to maintain his voice at such an elevated register for the duration of an entire book), this is nonetheless a worthwhile, easy read that's stuffed with insights into the artistic process.(less)

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Nov 29, 2007 Chad rated it 3 of 5 stars

After reading half of this book sometime ago and then getting side track, I finally picked it up again. Mainly to get reacquainted with Dylan before seeing I'M NOT HERE.

I am currently reading the chapter where Dylan is lost with in himself. No longer enjoying is creativity or understanding it. "The problem was that after relying so long on instinct and intuition, both these ladies had turned into vultures and were sucking me dry" Dylan said. He was stuck unable to change and didn't know why or...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Christian rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those who don't believe in Zimmerman

Let me start off by saying is that I'm not a Dylan music fan; it's not that I dislike Dylan, but I've just never really listened to him. I think I own just two of his songs (Rainy Day Women and All Along the Watchtower, thanks BSG finale). So I'm not what you'd call a fan.

As a result I was kinda surprised by what this book is. It's not a biography per se, it's more of a summation of the inspirations and their effects on his life. There's enough other names thrown around in this book that one cou...more

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Aug 03, 2007 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recentpast

If you're a song-writer or care at all about the craft of song-writing then this is a great read. He doesn't give you any road maps, just explains things in his typically disjointed manner. Some quotes...

A song is like a dream, and you try to make it come true. They're like strange countries that you have to enter. You can write a song anywhere, in a railroad compartment, on a boat, on horseback-it helps to be moving. Sometimes people who have the greatest talent for writing songs never write an...more

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Jul 23, 2007 Mikey rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: fiction

Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume One is a bizarre masterpiece, an autobiography of deliberately misremembered facts that puts the reader directly in the mind of one of the greatest artists of...all time, really. Dylan's (and not Robert Zimmerman's; there's a distinction here, and it's why the book is best categorized as fiction) voice comes through loud and clear here and presents an incredible picture of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 60s, the rock scene of the 80s, the intellectuals who...more

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Feb 16, 2008 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've only come around to liking Dylan in the last few years, despised him since youth. I didn't read this when it first came out cause at that point I didn't care. Waiting around in Heathrow and not wanting to get stuck with British coins I spent my remaining funds on one particularly good British candy and this paperback. Figured that I would get around to reading it sooner or later. I completely forgot about the book I had been reading and spent the next day and a half burning thought this. Dy...more

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Mar 10, 2008 Salma rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone! Even if they don't like Bob.

Shelves: music, favorites

there's no way to do this work justice- it's like one of his songs- you've gotta experience it- let it hit you. Like a Dali painting.

He talks in poetry- he made me laugh so hard with his sarcasm I got cramps. He tells us what inspired him- when he got inspired (age 12, banging around on the piano, listening to Little Richard records), talks about Suze, the love he's still obviously in love with. Talks about his dry spells- the despair that came with it.

He doesn't give us juicy details which ar...more

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Mar 25, 2009 Margaret added it

Wow..
Just... wow...
Now I see why people were raving about this book. It's Bob Dylan's story - told in a uniquely Dylan-esqe way.
It's as stream-of-consciousness as Todd Haynes' film - and just as poetic.

Whether he's talking about writing his first song or sitting around his kitchen table talking about fame with Bono - it's all Dylan in his warped, too-sensible-for-this-world voice.

One of the most interesting stories in the book:
So.. Bob Dylan, from the very beginning of his career, would visi...more

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Jan 22, 2009 bookczuk rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-autobiography-or-memoir, skim-read-til-the-end

One of my friends gave me this saying, "Hated it, hated it, hated it". I had just seen the wonderful documentary on Bob Dylan, and wanted to give it a try. Equal parts fascination and exasperation were my reaction. didn't go for Volume II. I had no idea Dylan so totally remade himself.

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else."

So writes Bob Dylan in Chron...more

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Dec 25, 2008 Pudge rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Hardcore Dylan Fans

Some people have said this book doesn't reveal enough about Bob Dylan's personal life and that it skips around too much. I feel differently. Far as self-disclosure goes, Bob Dylan will never write a tell all, because that's just not the kind of person he is. I was very happy with the many personal thoughts and experiences he did share in Chronicles; he was way more open that I expected. This book does not read like a normal story. It's true. Bob doesn't always stick to a chronological line, but...more

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May 01, 2013 Steven rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Never been a Bob Dylan fan. No interest in his songs or his strange voice. But I'd read other books about the Beats and several of Dylan's contemporaries, so I read this one.

It was great.

Bob Dylan writes well and can be quite poetic, most would agree. His writing--divorced as it is from his bizarre, nasal and often muddied speech--is very good, filled with excellent phrases and beautiful word pictures. He tells an interesting story and his commentary is great. I really enjoyed hearing the stor...more Never been a Bob Dylan fan. No interest in his songs or his strange voice. But I'd read other books about the Beats and several of Dylan's contemporaries, so I read this one.

It was great.

Bob Dylan writes well and can be quite poetic, most would agree. His writing--divorced as it is from his bizarre, nasal and often muddied speech--is very good, filled with excellent phrases and beautiful word pictures. He tells an interesting story and his commentary is great. I really enjoyed hearing the story about being Bob Dylan in the late 60s, and how frustrating it was for him to be pigeon-holed by critics, fans, and other singers forever crying out for him to take up the charge and lead some kind of movement. All he wanted to do was be left alone to love his wife and raise his five kids. To combat these expectations, he staged funny stunts, such as acting drunk in public, just to throw off the critics.

Great Quote: "You can sell your privacy, but you can't buy it back."

Dylan offers interesting commentary on music. He says sure, television may be shortening people's attention spans, but so are 3-minute songs. How can you tell a story in three minutes? Like most artists, commercial concerns of producers often frustrate the artistic vision. He listens to the Beatles, the Stones, Mo Town, and many other genres in which he does not perform, and his comments on these are almost always positive and insightful.

Yesterday being Willie Nelson's 80th birthday, I recall Dylan once said (on Willie's 60th) that Willie was a very inventive musician, never playing a song the same way twice. The book contains no commentary on Nelson, but Dylan speaks at length about Hank Williams, whom he credits with a beautifully expressive voice, and whose compositions were so good, Dylan spent some time studying each one, even breaking them down into smaller parts so he could really master Williams' technique.

I read--listened actually--to an abridged version from the library. It was so good, I may have to purchase the unabridged paperback and read it again. I never like abridgements.

The audio was made better by the reading of Sean Penn. I am less a fan of Penn than I am of Dylan's singing voice, but he made a great reader for Dylan's book. (less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Jeff March rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was about halfway through Bob Dylan's 2004 autobiographical book "Chronicles, Volume One" when I realized that he had either intentionally or inadvertently composed it as he would songs for an album. Rather than presenting one contiguous saga, the book consists of a collection of personal vignettes. I struggled at first to figure out the chronology of the book, until I discerned that the narrative consists of memories about various episodes in his life -- some of them connected, some disconnec...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Mike Schwartz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really, I mean, how good could this book be? The songs say pretty much everything that needs to be said, and the man (before 2005, at least) was never given to revealing much during interviews. His one previous book, “Tarantula” was a godawful mess, all but unreadable and every year has seen the release of more books about him than I care to count. His recent albums are great, but lack the world changing brilliance of the earlier ones. Experiments in new forms (“Tarantula”, “Renaldo and Clara”)...more

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Feb 15, 2013 J. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: music, memoir-and-autobiography

Since Dylan is turning 70 it seemed like an opportune time to finally read ‘Chronicles‘. Born in 1941 in Duluth, Robert Zimmerman is the eldest son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He doesn’t go into his family origins and early life, instead the book starts off with Dylan’s arrival in New York in 1961 and the account of his time there working his way around the coffee shops, bars. It’s very cinematic and almost dream like, a young boy from the country arriving in the city with a pocket full of dre...more Since Dylan is turning 70 it seemed like an opportune time to finally read ‘Chronicles‘. Born in 1941 in Duluth, Robert Zimmerman is the eldest son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He doesn’t go into his family origins and early life, instead the book starts off with Dylan’s arrival in New York in 1961 and the account of his time there working his way around the coffee shops, bars. It’s very cinematic and almost dream like, a young boy from the country arriving in the city with a pocket full of dreams yet his rise from an unknown to established folk hero, at least the way he describes it, is seamless. There are some very interesting parts for fans namely how he adopted certain styles, some of his approaches to song writing and clues to his inspirations. Dylan is timeless, obsessed with the past he submerged his identity in the vastness of tradition. His songs are peppered with historical figures from American history Robert E. lee., boxer Davy Moore, civil rights campaigner Medgar Evers and other ordinary people discovered through plumbing the archives of American music (blues, folk, country). He discovered -
‘debauched bootleggers, mothers that drowned their own children, cadillacs that only got five miles to the gallon, floods, union hall fires, darkness and cadavers at the bottom of rivers.. They weren’t friendly or ripe with mellowness. They didn’t come gently to the shore… They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality, some different republic, some liberated republic.’

He mentions some of the books he loved to read, he especially liked Balzac novels inhabited by young protagonists arriving in cities hoping to make their fortune. His opinion of Joyce surprised me as I thought that Dylan would appreciate his subversive commentary on the state of a subsided nation, Dylan is after all singing songs about the wrong done in a society that believes itself to be just and great -‘James Joyce seemed like the most arrogant man who ever lived, had both his eyes wide open and great faculty for speech, but what he say, I knew not what' - Other characters of Irish interest are mentioned. He drinks Guinness with Bono and spends time with the Clancy brothers.

The book charts times in Dylans' life when he was at cross roads, such as after his motorcycle accident in 1966 Dylan tried to retreat from the lime light only to find that his silence made his fans seek him out more ardently.

If you aren‘t a fan of his music it may be a bit laborious as ‘The Chronicles’ isn’t chronological. The first half of the book held my interest, the second half was more sketchy. According to fans there are some inconsistencies with dates. Where do you put a memoir like this fiction/non-fiction Dylan is irreducible, complex, mercurial. He is a Jokerman- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpk4Hg... I look forward to reading the Chronicles Volume 2.(less)

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Dec 09, 2012 Tom Marcinko rated it 4 of 5 stars

As funny, observant, cryptic, and free-associating as you’d expect. I just wish his editor had made him use the word "incredulous" correctly.

~I asked the guy who made the sound effects for the radio shows how he got the sound of the electric chair and he said it was bacon sizzling. What about broken bones? The guy took out a LifeSaver and crushed it between his teeth.~

~Protest songs are difficult to write without making them come off as preachy and one-dimensional. You have to show people a side...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Graeme rated it 4 of 5 stars

I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring. She was born in spring and I was born to late - blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Blood on the tracks gets the most credit for me although when you watch hour long Bob Dylan tribute festivals, it's clear to see that they express Dylan better than Dylan Dylans himself.

anyway the book was alright. really great but simply alright; I like hello how are you by the easybeats.

check out these lyrics: got the Bob Dylan blues and the Bob Dylan shoes an...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Even though I got about three thousand Bob Dylan songs and have even listened to 'Saved' and 'Knocked Out Loaded' repeatedly, I never considered reading this, because memoirs of celebrities are boring. But I started reading a friend's copy and got swept up in it and couldn't stop. The trick is that it's not really much about the man Bob Dylan, it's a colorful, free-wheeling, often funny selection of his thoughts on a wide variety of topics (the American Civil War, the Iron Range, Christmas, Mach...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Abraham rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bob Dylan Chronicles Volume One

Author: Bob Dylan

Plot: A great trip into the early life of a master at the world of music.

My Review and Thoughts:

This is a powerful get to know, the legend book. A superb read of a musical genius start. A well written chronicle of amazing insight of this powerful musical icon. I have always been one of the biggest Dylan fans, I own all his Albums. He is a true one of a kind master of word and sound that touches the very soul of the music God. No matter what decade...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Paul Lyons rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

When I finally finished the book "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" by Bob Dylan, it made me sad to reach the last page...I felt as if I had been getting to really know an old friend for the first time...so it was hard to say goodbye. I loved this book in ways I didn't think were possible...There I was, racing home after work...just to read a few more pages of Dylan's story. "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" was something I consistently looked forward to. Each time I would pick up the book, I w...more When I finally finished the book "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" by Bob Dylan, it made me sad to reach the last page...I felt as if I had been getting to really know an old friend for the first time...so it was hard to say goodbye. I loved this book in ways I didn't think were possible...There I was, racing home after work...just to read a few more pages of Dylan's story. "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" was something I consistently looked forward to. Each time I would pick up the book, I would have a really hard time putting it down.

I had been in and out of love with Bob Dylan and his music since I was a teenager...He was always this intangible enigma...marching to the beat of his own drummer. When I was younger, Dylan's music felt different to me than any other artist...His words, melodies and voice seemed always out of my reach, out of my realm...I didn't understand it...had no clue where he was coming from. I did not connect with music of Bob Dylan in the same way I connected to the Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Spingsteen, etc...His music was great, yet I never knew why. What was I missing? I would listen to Dylan's music because it was good for me...and not simply for the pleasure of its sound. Took me years to get past this...put on BLONDE ON BLONDE, and simply enjoy songs like "Pledging My Time" "Visions of Johanna", "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat" and "Obviously 5 Believers"...I loved "Isis" from his DESIRE record...and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from HIGHWAY 61 REVISTED...yet what these songs were about was anybody's guess.

I have been on a big Bob Dylan kick ever since seeing him in concert in 2008 in Santa Monica. Since that time, I've been inspired to listen to more Dylan records, read Mark Polizzotti's excellent 33 1/3 book on the story behind HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED, and watch Martin Scorsese's excellent Dylan documentary NO DIRECTION HOME. Despite all of this, I approached "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" with trepidation. Would a book written by Bob Dylan be just as elusive, frustratingly enigmatic, and downright puzzling as his songs, his persona, and his weird adventures in cinema (i.e. 2003's unwatchable film MASKED & ANONYMOUS)???? The answer, I am pleased to say, is a resounding NO. Instead of dishing out Dylan's ususal set of poetic mystery...this time around...You get to read Dylan's story in a very straight forward prose...easy to digest, yet no less artistic than his other works. Here, perhaps for the first time...you get to really peak inside Bob Dylan's brain...see the way he thinks...experience what he experienced...through his eyes.

Told almost in a stream of consciousness sort of way...Dylan begins his book with early days in New York City...As he tells his tell...you can truly feel his innocence, as he sits looking out a friend's window in on a cold winter's day in 1961. With a surprisingly amount of humility, Dylan discusses his wide eyed wonder of the big city, and being an unknown singer trying to make it. He openly and freely discusses the things that influenced him as a young man...books and poetry that he read, paintings he liked, and most importantly...his vast musical influences.

In the book, Dylan breaks down his own enigma...and comes clean on the music and artists that paved the way to his own songs....Woody Guthrie, Mike Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Leadbelly, Joan Baez, Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Robert Johnson, Bertolt Brecht with Kurt Weill and many more. We get to witness Bob Dylan the music fan, and student...who listened, studied and analyzed music...seeing what makes a song work, studying how songs are constructed...Dylan was not some miracle genius who popped out of nowhere...No, he was a normal kid from Minnesota who grew up listening to music, and worked very hard to learn and master his craft.

We witness his excitement at landing a record contract with Columbia Records when he was only 20 years old...and how it happened...all the gigs he did at Greenwich Village clubs such as The Cafe Wah?, The Gaslight and Gerde's Folk City...whom he met along the way...especially his first and second run-ins with legendary record producer /A&R man John Hammond...

Yet "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" is not necessarily a linear tale...Dylan jumps from his earliest days to around 1970...skipping over his well-publicized heyday of 1962-1966. Here he discusses the making of one of my favroite Dylan records...NEW MORNING. And just when you get enraptured in that particular era of Bob Dylan's life...it jumps again to a different time in Dylan's early career, then jumps 25 plus years to the late 1980's...where you get to read, in fascinating detail, everything that went on during the making of another one of my favorite Dylan albums...1989's OH MERCY. Then we go back in time...to the period we began at the start of the book.

Through it all, through Dylan's own words...we get an incredible 360 portrait of a complicated, fascinating man. Yes, one can be a cynic and say "well...his memory from 40 plus years ago can not be THAT good!"....yet that would miss the point. Just like through much of his music, we are presented in "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One" with Dylan the storyteller...a very compelling storyteller. I can only hope and pray that one day he will release "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume Two"...with a life like Bob Dylan's....there's a million more great stories to tell... (less)

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Mar 24, 2012 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, music

A memoir of Dylan’s early days, from the hungry Greenwich village years to the recording of Oh Mercy with Daniel Lanois in New Orleans and back again to the ‘60s and meeting John Hammond and signing to Columbia. It’s an illuminating, rambling, interesting, contradictory, and frustrating book. While he uncovers a vast treasure trove of his varied influences, from Johnny Rivers to Dave von Ronk to Brecht’s “Pirate Jenny” to Genet’s “The Balcony,” he pays no mind to chronology; he deliberately leav...more A memoir of Dylan’s early days, from the hungry Greenwich village years to the recording of Oh Mercy with Daniel Lanois in New Orleans and back again to the ‘60s and meeting John Hammond and signing to Columbia. It’s an illuminating, rambling, interesting, contradictory, and frustrating book. While he uncovers a vast treasure trove of his varied influences, from Johnny Rivers to Dave von Ronk to Brecht’s “Pirate Jenny” to Genet’s “The Balcony,” he pays no mind to chronology; he deliberately leaves many dots unconnected. More maddening is his prose itself --- sometimes poetic and crystal, sometimes rambling to the point of dementia, as if he’s narrated the book into a tape recorder.

He makes grammatical mistakes, misusing “whom” and “myself,” which is disheartening for a fan like me. But more often, the book taunts and teases with passages that seem inane: “Moe Asch was chatting with Mike. They were just standing around like people who knew what they were talking about.” Is that expressive? Or worse: “I used to play the phenomenal ‘Ebb Tide’ by Frank Sinatra a lot and it had never failed to fill me with awe. The lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. I could hear everything in his voice --- death, God and the universe, everything. I had other things to do, though, and I couldn’t be listening to that stuff much.” Wait, what? And Dylan has endless passages of what appears to be meaningless psychobabble: “With a new incantation code to infuse my vocals with manifest presence I could ride high… Thematic triplets making everything hypnotic.” He goes on and on about changing, about a new vocal line and new way of performing, but then a few pages later remarks, “Here’s the thing --- I wasn’t looking to express myself in any kind of new way.” And yet, it is a fascinating book as well; Dylan’s at his best talking about people and their psychologies, as when he discussing folk snobbery, or gushing over one of the musical greats like Robert Johnson. I doubt there’ll ever be a volume two, but for all my carps about this one, I’d read the next if it ever came out. (less)

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About Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, poet, and, of late, disc jockey who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times T...more

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“Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.” — 173 people liked it

“Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want (Bob Dylan's dad)” — 114 people liked it

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