Revolution In The Air: The Songs Of Bob Dylan Vol 1 – 1957-73
by Clinton Heylin

Something to really have a song and dance about

After turning his attention to punk and Sgt Pepper in the past couple of years, Heylin looks back at Dylan once more. Revolution In The Air is the first serious attempt to place each of Dylan’s original songs into chronological order of writing – as opposed to recording – tracing the evolution of Dylan’s craft, as opposed to what he did and when. Heylin has uncovered songs labelled in recording sessions or scribbled on bits of paper that not even the most avid Dylanite will have heard. Some are so obscure they weren’t even recorded – just fragments of ideas that have merged into the wider whole, or which would have been forgotten were it not for this tireless, clinical researcher. There are 300 in total, from the earliest Hibbing, Minnesota recordings, through the finger-pointing years, Dylan’s mid-60s reinvention of song and his troublesome false dawns in the early 70s, winding up with Planet Waves.

History of song, biographical detail and one of the most acute ears and eyes to lend themselves to the groaning shelf of Dylan books converge into what is, in short, a masterpiece of scholarly work. A second volume promises to bring us up to date later in the year. Buy this, then that, and also Derek Barker’s The Songs He Didn’t Write, and you’ll have everything you need about the work of our most important songwriter.

ISBN 9781849010511, 482 pages

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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