About the Book

While Bob Dylan has written many of the most iconic and impactful lyrics of the past sixty years, his music has also reshaped our sonic imagination. What Did You Hear? is about that music, engaging Dylan’s sounds with the same care typically lavished on his words.

In the book, I argue that Dylan’s music achieves its effects not despite its many imperfections, but precisely because of them. I show how these blemishes can invoke authenticity or persona, signal his social commitments, and even betray his political shortcomings. We begin—where else?—with Dylan’s voice, exploring its changeability, its unmistakable features, and its ability to inhabit characters, including the female narrator of “House of the Rising Sun.” We then turn to Dylan as an instrumentalist, examining his infamous adoption of the electric guitar in 1965—a primal scene that I encourage us to hear anew—as well as his stylistically varied acoustic playing, which borrows from Black and white traditions alike. The book charts the histories audible in Dylan’s harmonica and traces his lifelong relationship with the piano, from his earliest days of imitating Little Richard to his late-career return to the instrument. Finally, the book concludes with a deep dive into one of Dylan’s most famous songs, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” analyzing its musical sources as well as variations in live performances.