Bob Dylan Poems Surface as Part of Book Due Out in November

A pair of poems written by Bob Dylan have been published in The New Yorker magazine. The poems — simply titled "#17" and "#21" — were penned by Dylan in an era closer to The Times They Are A-Changin' than Modern Times. They will be featured in the upcoming book Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript, which pairs 23 Dylan poems with classic Hollywood photos by photographer Barry Feinstein, who also photographed Dylan for the The Times They Are A-Changin' album cover. Forty years after Feinstein and Dylan collaborated on the project, the 160-page book will finally be released on November 4th through Simon & Schuster. "#17" finds the narrator pondering suicide and Marlon Brando, while "#21" has the narrator attending the funeral. Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric is Dylan's latest foray into literature: Dylan wrote a Beat poetry-styled novel in 1966 entitled Tartantula, as well as his own autobiography Chronicles, Vol. 1 in 2004. Simon & Schuster, who also published Chronicles said back in April that Dylan has begun work on the book's second volume.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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