Bob Dylan is this year's laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature

[Brian Howell]

The times they are a-changing.

How cool is that?

Somewhat ironically, this comes a few days after I read an article at the Daily Beat suggesting that the Nobel Committee has been snubbing the United States: Dylan is the first American winner since Toni Morrison in 1993.

Of course there is the inevitable backlash to Dylan's award: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/10/13/why_bob_dylan_shouldn_t_have_gotten_the_nobel_prize_for_literature.html

Many have said that Dylan is first and foremost a poet but the above linked Slate article argues that he is rather a lyricist. 

Does Dylan deserve the prize?

[Brian Howell]

Salon's article on Dylan's award: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/13/bob-dylan-wins-2016-nobel-prize-for-literature/

[Scott Hotes]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 8:42 AM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:

How cool is that?

Very cool.

 

Of course there is the inevitable backlash to Dylan's award: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/10/13/why_bob_dylan_shouldn_t_have_gotten_the_nobel_prize_for_literature.html

Many have said that Dylan is first and foremost a poet but the above linked Slate article argues that he is rather a lyricist. 

The main thrust of the writer's position is that Dylan's lyrics/words do not stand up

without music.  Not sure how one would get at this objectively, but pulling out lyrics

from one of over 2000 songs he's written that, at least in his mind, makes his case,

is probably not one of them.  Maybe look at Chimes of Freedom?  In any case,

I believe the following stands on its own as adequate counter-example:

Last Thoughts on Woodie Guthrie.

Scott

 

[jack saunders]

Does he deserve it?  Sure he does.  He got attention, careful attention.

I have all Bob Dylan's stuff on my iPod and have listened to him with worried curiosity since he broke on the scene back in my adolescence.  

Listen to those lyrics with care, and you will hear the voice of a nasty little misanthrope.  He frightened me.  How could the poet laureate of my generation (even then we understood him to be that writer) say something like, "You'd rather see me paralyzed...."?  

"The pump don't work 'cuz the vandals took the handle."  

"You'd know what a drag it is to see you!"

Did people really confront each other with such hatred?  I was a sheltered boy, growing up in the gentle Catholic school system where love was the only answer.  The Beatles made perfect sense.  But the loud and tinny "Fuck You!" of Bob Dylan, while excitingly transgressive, was never anything to build a life around.  I kept hoping it was just an eccentric entertainer's schtik.  But he got attention, and he stimulated discussion.  That's what we pay poets to do.

 

---

From: Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
To: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 8:44 AM
Subject: [Ipse Dixit] Re: Bob Dylan is this year's laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Salon's article on Dylan's award: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/13/bob-dylan-wins-2016-nobel-prize-for-literature/

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[Scott Hotes]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 1:13 PM, jack saunders <jack...@pacbell.net> wrote:

Does he deserve it?  Sure he does.  He got attention, careful attention.

I have all Bob Dylan's stuff on my iPod and have listened to him with worried curiosity since he broke on the scene back in my adolescence.  

Listen to those lyrics with care, and you will hear the voice of a nasty little misanthrope.  He frightened me.  How could the poet laureate of my generation (even then we understood him to be that writer) say something like, "You'd rather see me paralyzed...."?  

"The pump don't work 'cuz the vandals took the handle."  

"You'd know what a drag it is to see you!"

Did people really confront each other with such hatred?  I was a sheltered boy, growing up in the gentle Catholic school system where love was the only answer.  The Beatles made perfect sense.  But the loud and tinny "Fuck You!" of Bob Dylan, while excitingly transgressive, was never anything to build a life around.  I kept hoping it was just an eccentric entertainer's schtik.  But he got attention, and he stimulated discussion.  That's what we pay poets to do.

Like all great artists, Dylan is a highly sensitive, emotional person who found a way to

effectively capture his feelings, and his rationalization of the world around him.  And the

world reacted, and was a better place for it.

I disagree with the use of the word "hatred", at least if used as a central theme.  It is

and was whatever was real, or at least real to him.

Blood on the Tracks can be perceived as hateful.  He was breaking up, and all the pain

that goes along with it.  Lucky for us, he was able and inclined to get it all down and

turn it into art.  Yes, there is Idiot Wind, with "I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt

ways had finally made you blind", but there's also If You Say Hello, which does not

sound like hate, fuck you or schtick:

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she’s passin’ back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time