Taking readers behind Bob Dylan's familiar image as the enigmatic rebel of the 1960s, this book reveals a different view--that of a careful craftsman and student of the art of songwriting. Drawing on revelations from Dylan's memoir Chronicles and a variety of other sources, the author arrives at a radically new interpretation of his body of work, which revolutionized American music and won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan's songs are viewed as collages, ingeniously combining themes and images from American popular culture and European high culture.