Quentin Tarantino and Bob Dylan Essentially Wrote the Same Book

A few weeks ago, two separate artists, each a giant in his respective field, both published a new nonfiction book. As Dylan writes, “It’s what a song makes you feel about your own life that’s important,” and both men, whether writing about a film or a song or their own lives, are undeniably aware that the line between the personal and the professional is erased altogether when you’re making art that means so much to so many people—and, more importantly, to themselves. Dylan goes so far as to end the very first essay by stating, “That’s why this song works.” For both authors, it’s less like an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. Making music with your friends, and earning a living.” He takes on the persona of the husband in the crosshairs of the suspicious wife in “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”—“On goes the light, and she wants precise details of where you’ve been, and she’s giving you the business, giving you bad vibes.” And most tellingly, in writing about the shifting persona of Bobby Darin, he ends up writing about himself: “Some people create new lives to hide their past. There are phrases in Dylan’s book that feel like they could’ve flowed from Marcus’ pen: “Every song was sung as if it might be the last one he would ever sing.” “He didn’t just wear his emotions on his sleeve, he carried them on a flag that he waved in the audience’s face.” And, most hauntingly, “This record presses the panic button.