With the Grammy Award winning album of the year in 1998 Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan continues to extend the boundaries of his art - the Dylan of the sixties remains a beacon of integrity to which fans and fellow musicians keep returning.

Dylan was a painfully honest songwriter, whether reflecting upon the charged political situation of the time, or upon his own turbulent personal life. Through these songs, he sent coded messages to his legion of fans, who eagerly attempted to decipher them for clues as to his intentions and character.

In this book Andy Gill assesses the circumstances behind Dylan's most famous songs, tracing the artist's progress from young tyro folkie to acclaimed protest singer, and through the subsequent changes which saw him invent folk-rock and transform rock 'n roll with symbolist poetry, before experimenting with country-rock just as his followers were beginning to tune into the explosion of psychedelia in the late sixties.