Well done Bob, you deserve it!
This ranks up there with John Nash’s prize for game theory as one of the most well deserved Nobels ever.
Well, why not? Even Obozo got a Nobel Peace Prize, so nothing would surprise me.
Well deserved. Too bad this is from the same group of idiots that gave Obama the peace prize.
Does this mean Dylan will have to don a white tie and tails to receive the award? I want to see that.
Oh puhleeeeze
Dylan, the croak voiced hack poet honored by the same group that honored Obozo
Not bad for somebody whose career peaked in 1968
He’ll still get suspicious looks from cops at the Jersey shore.
Not Smokey Robinson?
This is beyond imbecility. Dylan’s low IQ doggerel is as worthy of a Nobel as Rigoberta Menchu’s “biography” and all the other PC Nobels to small talent, mediocre minds for their service to the leftist agenda. Yeah, Dylan is just as good as Kipling or Hemmingway. /sarc/
This is beyond imbecility. Dylan’s low IQ doggerel is as worthy of a Nobel as Rigoberta Menchu’s “biography” and all the other PC Nobels to small talent, mediocre minds for their service to the leftist agenda. Yeah, Dylan is just as good as Kipling or Hemmingway. /sarc/
I don’t know if I would say that Dylan is the greatest living poet, but he has certainly written some great lyrics. One I love that has been performed by quite a few people is: To Make You Feel My Love
Verse 1]
When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love
[Verse 2]
When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love
[Verse 3]
I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong
[Verse 4]
I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love
[Verse 5]
The storms are raging on the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You haven’t seen nothing like me yet
[Verse 6]
I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love
Dylan is fine, but a Nobel in literature? That’s kind of a stretch. They should open a new category if they want to recognize musicians.
The Revolution is ON!
Vote Trump!
Here's the excerpt of Bob Dylan's comments:
“When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius,” Dylan said. “Even the counterpoint lines—they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music. Even the simplest song, like ‘The Law,’ which is structured on two fundamental chords, has counterpoint lines that are essential, and anybody who even thinks about doing this song and loves the lyrics would have to build around the counterpoint lines.
“His gift or genius is in his connection to the music of the spheres,” Dylan went on. “In the song ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ for instance, the verses are four elemental lines which change and move at predictable intervals . . . but the tune is anything but predictable. The song just comes in and states a fact. And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen. His tone is far from condescending or mocking. He is a tough-minded lover who doesn’t recognize the brush-off. Leonard’s always above it all. ‘Sisters of Mercy’ is verse after verse of four distinctive lines, in perfect meter, with no chorus, quivering with drama. The first line begins in a minor key. The second line goes from minor to major and steps up, and changes melody and variation. The third line steps up even higher than that to a different degree, and then the fourth line comes back to the beginning. This is a deceptively unusual musical theme, with or without lyrics. But it’s so subtle a listener doesn’t realize he’s been taken on a musical journey and dropped off somewhere, with or without lyrics.”
In the late eighties, Dylan performed “Hallelujah” on the road as a roughshod blues with a sly, ascending chorus. His version sounds less like the prettified Jeff Buckley version than like a work by John Lee Hooker. “That song ‘Hallelujah’ has resonance for me,” Dylan said. “There again, it’s a beautifully constructed melody that steps up, evolves, and slips back, all in quick time. But this song has a connective chorus, which when it comes in has a power all of its own. The ‘secret chord’ and the point-blank I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself aspect of the song has plenty of resonance for me.”
I asked Dylan whether he preferred Cohen’s later work, so colored with intimations of the end. “I like all of Leonard’s songs, early or late,” he said. “ ‘Going Home,’ ‘Show Me the Place,’ ‘The Darkness.’ These are all great songs, deep and truthful as ever and multidimensional, surprisingly melodic, and they make you think and feel. I like some of his later songs even better than his early ones. Yet there’s a simplicity to his early ones that I like, too.”
Dylan defended Cohen against the familiar critical reproach that his is music to slit your wrists by. He compared him to the Russian Jewish immigrant who wrote “Easter Parade.” “I see no disenchantment in Leonard’s lyrics at all,” Dylan said. “There’s always a direct sentiment, as if he’s holding a conversation and telling you something, him doing all the talking, but the listener keeps listening. He’s very much a descendant of Irving Berlin, maybe the only songwriter in modern history that Leonard can be directly related to. Berlin’s songs did the same thing. Berlin was also connected to some kind of celestial sphere. And, like Leonard, he probably had no classical-music training, either. Both of them just hear melodies that most of us can only strive for. Berlin’s lyrics also fell into place and consisted of half lines, full lines at surprising intervals, using simple elongated words. Both Leonard and Berlin are incredibly crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that seem classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than you’d think.”
To the last bolded sentence, I replied: So are you Bob Dylan, so are you.
Bob Dylan is a great lyric writer. The Byrds also wouldn’t have had a career if not for him.
But, no kidding, Dylan wrote some great poetry. Some sad, some funny, some biting commentary, some absolutely lovely.
I say, “good for him.”
The award is well deserved and I’ll bet Bob Dylan is voting for Donald Trump.
For example, when he was the darling of the New Left, he expressed his admiration for Barry Goldwater.
But I don't think he was on a level with the literary greats of the 20th century.
We're not living in the 20th century, though, and he may well turn out to be one of the high points of the era we're in now.
It's striking that this didn't get any play at all on the cable news networks.
They're too preoccupied with the election, of course, but it's a sign of how little the Nobel Prize for literature -- and maybe literature itself -- means today.
A college professor once went around the room with “who is your favorite poet”. When he got to me I said “ Bob Dylan.” All he said was “very interesting “ and moved on. :-)
This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush
— Hari Kunzru (@harikunzru) October 13, 2016
I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.
— Irvine Welsh (@IrvineWelsh) October 13, 2016