Bob Dylan has started writing the follow-up to his 2004 memoir Chronicles, saying he is 'always working on parts of it'.
It has been almost two years since Simon & Schuster announced plans for volumes two and three, and four years since Dylan began talking about writing another book. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the 71-year-old said he has already completed chapters on his albums The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and Another Side of Bob Dylan.
"It would definitely start with records," he said. "I stumbled into a strategy of going into the future and into the past … The whole early part of the first Chronicles was supposed to be based on some old record – maybe Another Side of Bob Dylan … Someplace in the 1960s. I was going to use that [record] and then I could go into the future. Well, what happened was that I … kind of just stayed there, and didn't really go into the future. When I started writing about the early days in New York, I found it all extremely interesting. When you start doing that, it amazes you what you uncover without even trying."
Apparently it's not the writing that slows Dylan down, it's the revising. "I don't mind writing it, but it's the rereading it and the time it takes to reread it – that for me is difficult," he explained. "The last Chronicles I did all myself."
Chronicles: Volume One received rave reviews, inspiring many other rock'n'roll memoirs, including Keith Richards' Life. It spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.