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List Price: $26.95 | | Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group
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Editorial Review:
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are widely acknowledged as the great pop poets of the 1960s, transforming the popular song into a medium for questionng the personal, social, and political norms of their times. They emerged at a time when the music industry was transforming the revolutionary sound of black music into something bland, homogenous, and fit for mass consumption. For many members of their generation, Dylan and Cohen were able to articulate what they were feeling and could not express: anti-establishement anger, angst, and despondency.
Dylan and Cohen is a fascinating political, psychological and artistic profile of these two iconic writers and performers. With reference to both biographical details and lyrics. David Boucher explores their similarities and differences, tracing the development of religious political, and social themes in their work and the ways in which those ideas engaged a new audience.
A must-read for all serious fans of either Dylan or Cohen, this book will also engage anyone interested in the North America of the 1960s, or more generally in the relationship between music, identity and politics.
Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll Reviews:
Take This Waltz 
2004-07-23 - What makes this book such a unique and significant contribution to its genre is that it is written with the insight and sensitivity of a spirit that seems deeply attuned to those of its subjects. Not only does the reader come away with a better understanding of the historical times and political contexts that shaped these men, and the personal struggles and psychological bents that motivated their writing, but also with a clearer understanding of what attracts their devotees to their work.
Throughout the book, Boucher weaves explorations of various aspects of the lives and cultural context of Dylan and Cohen that strongly affected them and their work. These include the civil rights movement, drugs, women, sexuality, God and religion, what it means to be reluctantly identified as the voice of a generation, and -- particularly for Cohen -- the holocaust. Boucher also explores the influence of other artists on their work, from Woody Guthrie for Dylan to Lorca for Cohen, as well as the influence that Dylan and Cohen had on each other.
Just as Dylan and Cohen make poetry an accessible part of popular culture, with equal skill Boucher makes philosophy of art and interpretation accessible as well. He points out that our experience of lyric poetry is informed by the questions we bring to it and he explains that the richest experience is to be had when the most appropriate questions are asked. Boucher uses the theories of several philosophers such as R. G. Collingwood, Henry Jones, and Michael Oakeshott, to identify which questions are most appropriately asked of particular works at particular moments in the artists' creative development. He also shows the fruitlessness of asking the wrong kind of questions of a particular poem, as is the tendency of many thinkers. He describes various forms of artistic expression: pseudo-art, or art as magic; art as the expression of emotion, or imaginative art; and inspirational art, or poetry which delights in images. He then demonstrates how, at various stages in Dylan's artistic development, his work takes all three forms of expression, whereas Cohen's work primarily takes the form of the last two. He then offers examples from their poetry to illustrate which form(s) of expression is/are being inhabited by a particular work and he supports his demonstrations with quotations about their work from the artists themselves.
Finally, Boucher helps to bring the period to life for his reader by including several pictures of book covers, concert and film posters, magazine covers and various photographs. The overall result of the book is that Boucher successfully positions his readers to have a richer experience and a deeper understanding and appreciation of the lyric poetry of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
Compulsively Readable
2004-07-10 - This is an excellent study of the music and lyrics of the 2 greatest rock "poets." Boucher explores whether or not their lyrics even qualify as poetry and keeps the subject interesting! He effectively delves into their psyches,as well, without getting hung up on personal, biographical details which have been over analyzed in other places. I found the final chapter "The Religious Experience" to be some of the best writing that I've seen on Dylan and Cohen's spiritual journeys. I highly recommend this to fans of either man's work.
Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
2004-06-16 - The irate and intemperate person signing himself pepidude in a previous review seems incapable of being able to appreciate an argument or of understanding the nature of the exercise that David Boucher has undertaken. It is a thematic book with a wide range of references, not a book of facts about Bob Dylan.The author introduces us to the complexities of issues relating to the difference between popular music lyrics and poetry, between origins and originality, the poetry of imagination and inspiration and much more. Anyone interested in ideas and issues, and in theories as well as facts will find this book immensely stimulating and fascinating.
Poetry Always was the New Rock & Roll
2004-06-16 - David Boucher has written a book that examines in detail the contribution of both artists to the worlds of both literature and rock & roll. In his intoduction he looks at the progress of Cohen from serious poet to rock & roll recording artist and performer. This transition cost him status in the literary world but aided by the legendary "golden voice" and some consummate musicians it allowed him to reach a hitherto undreamed of audience.
Dylan, whom he refers to as "The Changing Man" in Chapter Three, was the chameleon-like performer who picked up, and discarded new personas and new musical styles at the drop of his very famous hat. The obvious example here is the infamous "electric tour" where Dylan was heckled and called "Judas". This abuse was, the book shows, not only for his perceived betrayal of the acoustic folk movement, but also a reaction to the contempt with which Dylan treated his audience. Dylan had always been a confrontational performer, and his response to such attacks was to become louder and less acoustic than ever. What David Boucher also shows is that this signified a shift from the community centred ethic of the folk movement to the excessive individualism and nihilism of the Beat poets who through the drug culture wanted, like Rimbaud, to experience the extremes.
In other chapters the myriad influences on both performers are examined as well as their involvement with political and religious organisations. Finally David Boucher gives us an insight into the road travelled by both men in search of their own personal salvation.
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are complex men and complex performers. To listen to, or to read the works of either man is always challenging. In this book the author has written an analysis that is equally challenging exploring, as it does, the anger and the angst of the 1960s and beyond. I enjoyed every minute of the challenge.
How lovely does it get...?
2004-06-11 - David Boucher's masterly work 'Dylan & Cohen' is essential reading, not simply for devotees of these 'Poets of Rock and Roll' but for anyone with an interest in the history of the radical cultural, political and musical changes in the last century.
It is clear from this eloquent book that neither Dylan nor Cohen wished to speak for anyone but themselves and equally clear that the strength of their work would be seized upon by a generation looking for a new direction. Thankfully they both continued to write through their tribulations and we have a bank of some of the most evocative music to continue to listen to.
I urge you to buy this book but with a word of warning: you won't want to stop reading once you've started.
