The question is no longer just what Bob Dylan will have to say about Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” or the Clash’s “London Calling” when he writes about them in his new book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song.” Now we can wonder how Helen Mirren or Renée Zellweger will sound giving voice to Dylan’s prose as they read those chapters, respectively, in the audiobook version, which, like the hardback, arrives Nov. 1.
Variety previously reported the titles of the historical songs Dylan has written essays about for the tome, followed by the the names of the actors enlisted to read individual chapters for the audiobook, but those two lists hadn’t been paired up till now. A look at the list below, being revealed for the first time today, shows that all of the stars involved have been given multiple assignments, including Jeff Bridges, Oscar Isaac, Rita Moreno, Jeffrey Wright, Sissy Spacek, John Goodman, Alfre Woodard and Steve Buscemi as well as Mirren and Zellweger.
As first promised when the book was announced, Dylan himself will also do some reading for the audiobook, although he’s not taking on any full chapters himself. He will read short introductions or interstitial pieces that appear between chapters in the book, described by publisher Simon & Schuster as “a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.”
The chapters may well have been assigned at random, but Dylanologists may still have fun speculating on what reason, if any, Buscemi was picked to read about the Fugs’ “CIA Man,” Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” and Warren Zevon’s “Dirty Life and Times”… or why Mirren was the woman for the job of intoning “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady” and the Frank Sinatra standard “Stranger in the Night” as well as Costello’s new-wave-era classic… or why Woodard’s voice was the one for a literary exegesis of Little Richard’s “Tutti Fruitti,” the Nina Simone classic “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and Rosemary Clooney’s “Come On-a My House.”
One connection seems clear enough: Renée Zellweger reads a chapter about the Judy Garland-sung “Come Rain or Come Shine” not too many years after playing Garland on the big screen.
One could also suppose that Bridges was picked for Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” because of the Williams song catalog having played such a large part in “The Last Picture Show,” although, ironically, maybe, that was one of the few big Williams hits not included on that film’s soundtrack.
The full matching of titles and readers being released by Simon & Schuster Audio is below.
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