Bookshelf
Alumni and faculty members who would like to have their books considered for this listing should contact Stacey Himmelberger, editor of Hamilton magazine. This list, which dates back to 2018, is updated periodically with books appearing alphabetically on the date of entry.
Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other — And the World by Jim Windolf ’86
October 14, 2026
Tags Alumni Book
(Scribner, 2026).
From a features editor at The New York Times comes this book that’s more than your typical music biography; it’s a front-row seat to the forces that shaped an era. From Dylan’s initial dismissal description of the Beatles as being “bubblegum” for “teenyboppers,” to his realization that they were “pointing the direction where music had to go” — and from McCartney once calling Dylan’s music “folk crap” to the Fab Fours’ impromptu renditions of 15 Dylan songs during the 1969 Get Back sessions — the book captures the moments that pushed Dylan to “go electric” and inspired the Beatles to deepen their lyrics.
Chock full of surprising interconnections and packed with backstage anecdotes, Where the Music Had to Go is a close look into a previously unexamined relationship — one full of camaraderie, competition, and mutual evolution. The author notes the ways in which Dylan’s and the Beatles’ careers ran parallel to each other. For one, all of these musicians came from hardscrabble post-industrial towns, which helped form their defiant sensibilities. Other tidbits include Dylan introducing the Beatles’ to marijuana and multiple ways their music overlaps; for example, Lennon’s “I Want You” shares not only a title but a tone with one of Dylan’s songs.
The book is described this way by singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash, “Exquisitely researched, thrilling, and moving … I thought I’d been down every Beatles and Bob Dylan rabbit hole, traveling far into their separate histories — and I consider myself well-versed in their individual influences — but this book was revelatory. Windolf is extraordinarily attentive to the details of the Beatles’ and Dylan’s parallel evolutionary tracks, and he is an impressive harvester of their interactions … I felt as if I were listening for the first time to a riveting story, carefully told in cinematic detail, about the most interesting people on the planet.”
See also a review of the book by Brad Auerbach ’79 that appeared on bestclassicbands.com.
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Stacey Himmelberger
Editor of Hamilton magazine
