Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

One way or another, he’s a liar.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Not all heroes wear capes.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The revolution will be supervised.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bob Dylan Nobel

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165Comments

  3. 3.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    It does reflect on how song lyrics = lyrical poetry or short narrative formats.

    BUT DAMMIT BEVERLY CLEARY ISN’T GETTING ANY YOUNGER!!!! /fume

    They should award Cleary for children’s literature, and create a separate award for song lyrics (Screw you, Grammys!). #NobelPrizeForLyrics hopefully the next winner will be Beyonce.

  5. 5.

    p.a.

    Wow. Great and deserved honor, works + influence. Wonder if DJ! will be the target of Dylanophile anger for questioning his genius.

  6. 6.

    JMG

    First of all, it makes me feel old. I’m happy anytime something good happens to Dylan, but this is pretty weird. Matt Yglesias is right. There should be a separate Nobel for music.

  7. 7.

    Marc Montefusco

    If you look at the cultural influence attributable to previous Nobel Literature laureates, and compare it with the influence Dylan has had on worldwide thought, music, literature, art, and politics, this award makes a lot of sense.

  8. 8.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    A worthy recipient. Much better than the Literature prize going to members of the awarding committee in 1974.

  9. 9.

    wonkie

    I don;t begrudge hi his prize, but I’ve never thought his lyrics amounted to much more than rhyming word salad. I think he rates a Nobel more generally for a life time of creativity and devotion to music in its many forms and genre’s.

  10. 10.

    RK

    The next debate should just be Dateline’s Chris Hansen walking out to the stage and telling Donald Trump to have a seat. — Maggie Klaus

  11. 11.

    dr. bloor

    I like Dylan, but this strikes me as another instance in which a Nobel Committee aims to be “Smarter” than everyone else and hits “Clever.” See also: Obama, Barack.

  12. 12.

    Hiram Goldberg

    Music isn’t literature. He stole most of his lyrics anyway, which I think is fine for lyricists in the folk tradition. Nobel prize? It’s not literature.

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    Great coverage in the Guardian, with some criticism of the selection. Apparently, there was some delay in the announcement, suggesting some division among the judges.

    I think it’s great.

    You used to be so amused
    At Napoleon in rags,
    And the language that he used

  14. 14.

    Ruviana

    I’d been waiting for this post! Like some other commenters I’m not a “fan” of Dylan, but I recognize his wide influence on all kinds of music and probably on contemporary literature and poetry as well. When I saw it this morning I thought, wow, boomers represent! Cue the anti-boomer hordes in 3 – 2 – 1….

  15. 15.

    RK

    “Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
    The Titanic sails at dawn
    And everybody’s shouting
    “Which Side Are You On?”
    And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
    Fighting in the captain’s tower
    While calypso singers laugh at them
    And fishermen hold flowers
    Between the windows of the sea
    Where lovely mermaids flow
    And nobody has to think too much
    About Desolation Row”

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    I like Salman Rushdie’s tweeted comment:

    Salman Rushdie ✔@SalmanRushdie
    From Orpheus to Faiz,song & poetry have been closely linked. Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition.Great choice.

    “Inheritor of the bardic tradition.” Nice.

  18. 18.

    Marmot

    Good lyricist. Great, sure. I’d be agog if he won the Nobel for listenability, though. Or Physiology or Medicine, for that matter.

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Brachiator:

    Did you see this in the Guardian story?

    (ETA: Sorry, forgot link https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2016/oct/13/nobel-prize-in-literature-2016-liveblog)

    (ETA2: Sorry again, here’s the right link https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/29/swedish-cientists-bet-bob-dylan-lyrics-research-papers)

    Group of Swedish academics – authors of papers such as Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer is Blowing in the Wind – reveal 17-year bet: whoever has written most articles including Dylan quotes before going into retirement wins a lunch at a local restaurant

  25. 25.

    Richard Grant

    I think that Dylan deserves more awards but I would rather that the Nobel organizations and other award-grantors create new categories. What Owen Ellickson is doing with his on-going Trump Leaks twitter series — which Joss Whedon described as “his Mamet-meets-Lumet twitter radio drama” — deserves lasting recognition. https://twitter.com/onlxn

  27. 27.

    Nina

    If David Bowie and Prince were still alive I might argue it, which makes me sad. Makes me sadder to think that perhaps their passing opened the way to concentrate the votes for Dylan.

    Fuck you, 2016.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    How do people feel about Bob Dylan getting the Nobel prize for literature?

    Discredits the entire institution and meaning of the Nobel.

    Yes, I’m serious.

  33. 33.

    Gertrude the Duck

    No. I like Dylan, but (a) I think he’s a bit overrated lyrically and (b) why not use the Nobel to focus on novelists/poets who don’t get enough praise to begin with?

  34. 34.

    Chyron HR

    Well, that puts Jethro Tull and Steely Dan’s Album-of-the-Year-as-Lifetime-Achievement-Award Grammys in perspective.

  35. 35.

    dogwood

    “Sometimes even the President of the United States must have to stand naked.” Positively 4th Street.

  37. 37.

    Punchy

    The speech will require close captioning.

    This shit is comedy gold.

    I might add….for his real fans, that captioning better be in size 28 font.

  38. 38.

    Bostonian

    Dylan didn’t get the Nobel because his garbled live version of Maggie’s Farm is great listening. He won it because he straddled the worlds of poetry and popular music and permanently changed the course of the latter through infusion of the former. His lyrics by themselves deserve consideration among peers like Ferlinghetti, Ginsburg, and Eliot. The fact that so many millions heard these lyrics represents a unique contribution to world culture.

  40. 40.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    “I try my best, to be just like I am,
    but, everybody wants you to be just like them.”

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    For the Dylan haters, a dismissal from Irvine Welsh.

    I’m a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RK: He makes the most of it. For the record, I am firmly in the camp of “singing is not for only those with beautiful voices”. Singing is for everyone.

  46. 46.

    germy

    Does anyone else remember his book Tarantula? I remember reading it when it was first published; I think I checked it out of a library and I haven’t read it since. I wonder how it holds up. Maybe I can find a paperback in my local used bookstore.

  47. 47.

    Hoodie

    He’s a major poet with a massive body of work, much of which is iconic. I don’t see how this is any more controversial than the choice of other poets. In fact, he has reached a much wider audience than most, which I suspect is behind some of the controversy. Some must think that you have to labor in relative obscurity to be a real artist. True, many great artists have labored in obscurity, but it’s not like baking your bread on dung makes you a prophet.

  50. 50.

    sherparick

    Blood on the Tracks is amazing. I still have the album I bought when it was released in 1973. http://lyrics.rockmagic.net/lyrics/bob_dylan/blood_on_the_tracks_1975.html

    From Tangled up in Blue:

    So now I’m goin’ back again,
    I got to get to her somehow.
    All the people we used to know
    They’re an illusion to me now.
    Some are mathematicians
    Some are carpenter’s wives.
    Don’t know how it all got started,
    I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives.
    But me, I’m still on the road
    Headin’ for another joint
    We always did feel the same,
    We just saw it from a different point of view,
    Tangled up in blue.

    (

  53. 53.

    germy

    Music isn’t literature. He stole most of his lyrics anyway, which I think is fine for lyricists in the folk tradition

    I didn’t know he stole lyrics. I know he had a reputation for “lifting” melodies (including his most well known “blowing in the wind”) and pissing off the other folkies, but I never heard anything about plagiarizing lyrics.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    LA Times article, includes some Dylan comments from years ago interviews with Robert Hilburn:

    “My music comes from two places: white hillbilly music — Roscoe Holcomb, stuff like that — and black blues — people like Son House, Charley Patton, Robert Johnson. These are the two elements I’ve always related to best, even now,” Dylan told The Times’ Robert Hilburn in 1978. “Then, all of a sudden in the ’60s, I heard Woody Guthrie, which just blew my mind — what he did with a lyric. So, I stopped everything and learned his songs.”

    “That’s what kept me going,” Dylan continued. “I wanted to see how far I could take those elements, how well I could blend them together. Sometimes my music has gone a little to one side, but I’m always headed in the same direction.”

    The musician is the author of the books “Tarantula,” a work of experimental poetry that was first officially published in 1971, and Chronicles: Vol. 1,” a relatively straightforward autobiography that hit bestseller lists when it was published in 2004.

    “In the ’60s Time, Newsweek — all those magazines — started calling me the ‘father of the revolution,’ ‘the folk-rock king,’ and all that stuff. That’s when they created this ‘mythical Bob Dylan’ thing,” Dylan said in the 1978 interview. “What they say has nothing to do with me. It didn’t in the ’60s and it doesn’t now.”

    In 1985, Dylan talked to Hilburn again about his career. “When I see my name anywhere, it’s (often) ‘the ’60s this or the ’60s that.’ I can’t figure out sometimes if people think I’m dead or alive. But I’m not through….” the musician said. “I don’t feel old, but I remember in my 20s (when) I’d think about people in their 30s as old. The thing I really notice now is time. Things used to go a lot slower. . . . The days (now) go by so very fast. But I’ve never felt numb (about life). There is something about the chords, the sound of them that makes you feel alive. As long as you can play music, I believe, you’ll feel alive.”

    He plays at Desert Trip in Indio this weekend; was there last weekend too.

  60. 60.

    germy

    If they’ve expanded the award to songwriters, I’d like to see Elvis Costello get the award in a few years. Finest lyricist of his generation, IMHO.

  62. 62.

    germy

    @SFAW:

    Lothar and the Hand People. Outstanding.

    I remember when that parody first came out, it was startling and hilarious. It seemed so absurd to have “60s nostalgia” packaged in the cheap K-Tel Records commercial format… but nowadays most young people wouldn’t even hear that Lampoon bit as comedy.

  64. 64.

    RK

    @Hiram Goldberg: He got caught plagiarizing from a Japanese novel some years back and one of his songs closely resembles a Burns poem but I’ve never heard anyone conclude he steals his lyrics, at least during his height.

    Let me forget about today until tomorrow

  66. 66.

    Barbara

    I have to say that I am not thrilled, but I also have to say that it has been a while since I have been thrilled with Nobel literature prizes. I think that they are trying to expand the notion of literature, which is to their credit, but will necessarily result in disagreement. The truth is, the Nobel prize in literature has often been affected by a fairly myopic horizon of time and perspective. If you go back and look at a complete list, it will not take you long to figure out how hard it is to predict whose work will stand the test of time (even if we need to make allowances for the fact that Americans don’t necessarily have the last word on foreign authors, whose work they may not be familiar with). But if you had to pin me down, it’s hard for me to say that Bob Dylan is the equal of Pablo Neruda, W.B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O’Neill, or Samuel Beckett. But most of the other winners are also not even close in stature to those august recipients either. So, you know, it’s just one year and one recipient.

  67. 67.

    CaseyL

    It’s an excellent choice. His body of work, the quality of it, and how it has influenced culture and other artists, is outstanding.

    For many years, a new work by Dylan was Big News. I’m not sure why the fact that his work is popular makes him less deserving of a Nobel than someone whose work, while excellent, is known to a much smaller audience.

  68. 68.

    schrodinger's cat

    What a curmudgeonly response from jackals and hyenas. I think Bobby deserves his Nobel. I discovered him after PBS did the show No direction Home. What he wrote is still topical today after nearly 50 years. All artists steal from others.
    I particularly like his earlier work
    *You have to serve somebody (unless of course you are a kitteh)
    * Hard rain’s going to fall
    * What did you see my blue eyed son

  70. 70.

    SFAW

    @RK:

    and one of his songs closely resembles a Burns poem

    Wow, burnsie is a poet? Who knew? I thought he was “just” a lawyer.

    “The best law suits o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley” and all that.

  73. 73.

    laura

    It’s an interesting choice. It’s seems a counterpoint to last year’s winner Svetlana Alexievich who’s poetry gave voice to the suffering in Belarus.
    Dylan; like him, love him, or dismiss him; has also been a voice of a culture in flux. Influential in America and abroad.
    I dunno, these times having been a changing for so long, and there’s a good reason for resisting and speaking up in ordinary or not so ordinary ways.
    Masters of Wars, Knocking on Heaven’s Doors, Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat.
    Fine choice in my opinion -but it hardly makes up for that filth Kissinger.

  76. 76.

    RSA

    @Barbara:

    I think that they are trying to expand the notion of literature, which is to their credit, but will necessarily result in disagreement.

    I think so, too. I think that most people think of literature as something that’s independent of performance, which is generally the case for novels, short stories, and most poetry. Of course, this works less well for plays, and at least one playwright has won a Nobel prize, but you can still sit down, read a play, and make a judgment. I think it’s harder to separate Dylan’s lyrics from his own performance of the songs he wrote. Should we compare a body of song lyrics to a body of poetry, without thinking about the music? It’s “unfair” to the lyrics, but I don’t think music really falls under the category of literature.

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    what’s so bad about ABBA, not all music has to be profound.

    I guess “not profound” is just a different way of saying “insipid.” By extension, that probably qualifies Bulwer-Lytton for the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Or would, were he alive.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @schrodinger’s cat: I will say that the Nobel Committee has consistently if not uniformly tried to single out for acclaim literature that is tied to the social and cultural context in which it was made. It has not generally rewarded literature that is rarefied or disconnected from society at large, with exceptions proving the rule: E.g., T.S. Eliot, whose stature was too great to overlook. I think that’s why it has proven so hard to select recent winners. So in that light, Dylan is a perfect choice.

  83. 83.

    Tehanu

    @kindness:

    What, poetry isn’t literature by you? Don’t be ridiculous. You remind me of the lady who complained that Hamlet was just a bunch of quotations. I can’t think of a single poet or any other kind of writer of the last fifty years who’s had more influence. and for good reason; why shouldn’t he get academic plaudits?

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Their music is good to dance to. I am not recommending them for a Nobel.

    That’s fine, but you were responding to WereBear’s comment re: ABBA and the Nobel.

    I was always a curmudgeon in spirit if not in age.

    You seem pretty un-curmudgeonly to me, most of the time.

    ETA: And curmudgeons don’t post kitteh pictures.

  85. 85.

    SFAW

    @Tehanu:

    You remind me of the lady who complained that Hamlet was just a bunch of quotations.

    Which he stole from The Lion King, to boot. Well, the plot, I guess, not the actual quotes.

  86. 86.

    geg6

    Aw, come on, Doug. If these aren’t some of the greatest lyrics ever written, I don’t know what would be. This song has come in handy numerous times in my life in numerous situations. Probably my favorite Dylan song of all time.

    You got a lotta nerve
    To say you are my friend
    When I was down you just stood there grinning
    You got a lotta nerve
    To say you gotta helping hand to lend
    You just want to be on the side that’s winning

    You say I let you down
    You know it’s not like that
    If you’re so hurt why then don’t you show it
    You say you’ve lost your faith
    But that’s not where it’s at
    You have no faith to lose and you know it

    I know the reason
    That you talk behind my back
    I used to be among the crowd you’re in with
    Do you take me for such a fool
    To think I’d make contact
    With the one who tries to hide what it don’t know to begin with

    You see me on the street
    You always act surprised
    You say, “How are you? Good luck.”
    But you don’t mean it
    When you know as well as me
    You’d rather see me paralyzed
    Why don’t you just come out once and scream it

    No, I do not feel that good
    When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
    If I was a master thief perhaps I’d rob them
    And though I know you’re dissatisfied
    With your position and your place
    Don’t you understand it’s not my problem

    I wish that for just one time
    You could stand inside my shoes
    And for just that one moment I could be you
    Yes I wish that for just one time
    You could stand inside my shoes
    You’d know what a drag it is to see you

  87. 87.

    oldster

    I think it’s preposterous.

    I like Dylan okay, but he has gotten all of the recognition he ever earned, and then some.

    When you look at the list of people to whom they could have given the award, it contains many people who deserved this honor more than he did.

  88. 88.

    Just One More Canuck

    Idiot Wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
    You’re an idiot, babe
    It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

  89. 89.

    MomSense

    @geg6:

    I love Dylan so much. My son and I went to see him five years ago or so when he was playing in Bangor at an outdoor, riverfront concert. Right before he took the stage, heavy fog rolled in so thick you could barely see your own hand held in front of your face. It was like the universe conspired to give him the best entrance ever. That was such a good concert.

  93. 93.

    cmorenc

    For literature, ok. But I went to a double-header Willie Nelson / Bob Dylan concert a few years ago, and Dylan’s behavior toward the audience who had eagerly come to see HIM and not just Nelson, was unforgivably rude. He walked onstage, sat at his keyboard at one side of the stage, and played his entire set without ONCE looking toward or in any way acknowledging or speaking to the audience. Not a single instance of eye contact even. By contrast, from the moment he walked onstage and throughout his entire set, Willie Nelson made everyone in the audience feel like welcomely invited guests to a party on his own back porch. Dylan OTOH was a complete asshole who will never get another dime from me.

  95. 95.

    gene108

    @Thoroughly Pizzled:

    Nah, not really. If Kissinger or giving the Medicine prize to the inventor of lobotomies didn’t kill the Nobel Prize, nothing will.

    Lobotomies were one of the few solutions to deal with severe mental illness prior to anti-depression / anti-psychotic medication hitting the market in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

    It was, in its era, a real medical breakthrough.

    Kissinger…no committee is perfect…

  96. 96.

    SRW1

    Dylan is an inspired choice. I’m a bit sad that Leonard Cohen likely won’t live long enough to also be honored with a Nobel.

  97. 97.

    Barbara

    @geg6: Maybe among the greatest lyrics, but not among the greatest poetry. He writes what in earlier English periods was called the “plain” style, which is conversational and uses very little pure poetic (Petrarchan) imagery (“When I see the heartbreaks you embrace/If I was a master thief perhaps I’d rob them.”) Most of who we think of as the very greatest English poets merged the best features of both of these traditions into their work. John Donne and W.B. Yeats, for instance.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Kittehs are the original curmudgeons! I am just paying them homage.

    Whatever you need to tell yourself to convince yourself you’re curmudgeonly, huh?

    “Kittehs are the original curmudgeons!” indeed.

    By the way: I never thanked you for the “Malhari” link from a couple of months ago. It’s a little cheesy, but I like it.

  103. 103.

    Lizzy L

    I love it. Paul Campos at LGM haz a yuuuge sad about it because Philip Roth should have gotten it, and also Baby Boomers suck and should die already. F**k Philp Roth, and don’t worry, Paul, we Boomers are dying, and so will you, in your time. “It’s all right, Ma, I’m only bleeding.”

    Have I said that I love it? I love it.

  105. 105.

    p.a.

    Well, I rapped upon a house
    With the U.S. flag upon display
    I said, “Could you help me out
    I got some friends down the way”
    The man says, “Get out of here
    I’ll tear you limb from limb”
    I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”
    He said, “You’re not Him
    Get out of here before I break your bones
    I ain’t your pop”
    I decided to have him arrested
    And I went looking for a cop

  106. 106.

    Waldo

    Took a writing course with a Pulitzer-nominated poet back in the ’80s. He would not be pleased. Guy always resented that ’60s pop stars like Dylan and Paul Simon had collections of their lyrics published as poetry while many serious poets were scraping to get by. I imagine there are more than a few serious literary types seething this morning.

  107. 107.

    Marc

    If you see her, say hello
    She might be in Tangier
    She left here last early spring
    Is living there I hear

    Say for me that I’m all right
    Though things get kind of slow
    She might think that I’ve forgotten her
    Don’t tell her it isn’t so

    We had a falling-out
    Like lovers often will
    And to think of how she left that night
    It still brings me a chill

    And though our separation
    It pierced me to the heart
    She still lives inside of me
    We’ve never been apart

    If you get close to her
    Kiss her once for me
    I always have respected her
    For doing what she did and getting free

    Oh, whatever makes her happy
    I won’t stand in the way
    Oh, the bitter taste still lingers on
    From the night I tried to make her stay

    I see a lot of people
    As I make the rounds
    And I hear her name here and there
    As I go from town to town

    And I’ve never gotten used to it
    I’ve just learned to turn it off
    Either I’m too sensitive
    Or else I’m getting soft

    Sundown yellow moon
    I replay the past
    I know every scene by heart
    They all went by so fast
    If she’s passing back this way

    I’m not that hard to find
    Tell her she can look me up
    If she’s got the time

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Have seen Tattad tattad from Ram Leela?

    Well, I have now. Please forgive me saying it, but THAT was about three orders of magnitude cheesier than Malhari. Yeah, I understand that’s part of the Bollywood mystique/appeal, but even a low-class curmudgeon such as I has SOME standards.

    But thanks for the link, in any event.

  109. 109.

    WereBear

    @gene108: Lobotomies were one of the few solutions to deal with severe mental illness prior to anti-depression / anti-psychotic medication hitting the market in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

    If you leave aside a little thing like IT NOT WORKING, well then, sure.

  112. 112.

    FormerSwingVoter

    I can’t find the exact quote, but Dylan once said of Tangled Up In Blue, “It took me ten minutes to write it, and a lifetime to live it.”

  116. 116.

    the antibob

    @wonkie: I assume “word salad” refers to the Highway 61 period lyrics. There’s a lot more to Dylan’s lyrics than that. He’s a master storyteller. I’d start naming examples here, but there are so many it’s pointless. A personal little-recognized favorite is “Black Diamond Bay”. A master class in narrative poetry.

  117. 117.

    Brachiator

    @Waldo:

    Took a writing course with a Pulitzer-nominated poet back in the ’80s. He would not be pleased. Guy always resented that ’60s pop stars like Dylan and Paul Simon had collections of their lyrics published as poetry while many serious poets were scraping to get by.

    What a sad poet. In a song, the lyrics are made subordinate to the music. But poetry obviously grew out of a connection to accompanied performance.

    And the idea that “real” art must be “serious” to be valid is very flawed.

  118. 118.

    low-tech cyclist

    I think I quoted Leonard Cohen’s retelling of the Abraham and Isaac story last night in that thread, so equal time for Dylan here:

    Oh, God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
    Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
    God said, “No” Abe say, “What?”
    God say, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
    The next time you see me comin’, you better run”
    Well, Abe said, “Where d’you want this killin’ done?”
    God said, “Out on Highway 61”

    Yeah, I’m good with Dylan getting the Nobel. A way better choice than frickin’ Kissinger.

  119. 119.

    Steve Finlay

    I’m definitely a boomer (born in 1967), but I’m ambivalent about this. Yes, Dylan was influential. But I have always said there are only four things he can’t do: sing, play harmonica, play guitar, and write songs. My impression is that he wrote so many lyrics that a few were good just by accident.

    What he did do, I suspect, was inspire many people who became far superior songwriters, such as Leonard Cohen and John Prine.

  120. 120.

    SFAW

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Are you a guy of the straight variety?

    Bigot! Does it matter?

    Its for the female gaze!

    No shit?

    This one may be more to your curmudgeonly taste.

    Curmudgeons have taste? Nice looking woman, choreography was somewhat interesting. But I’m getting the idea that a Ram Leela dance number is pretty much the same — with some differences, of course — through most of his oeuvre. And is Ranveer Singh a latter-day Mifune/Shimura to Leela’s Kurosawa? (Ignoring the differences in quality, of course.)

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @Doug!:

    All prizes for intellectual achievement are silly.

    So, the Super Bowl trophy is more important that the Nobel Prize for Physics or Chemistry.

  123. 123.

    Marc

    A lot of people confuse “not to my taste” with “bad” in music. Dylan was enormously influential, which is a major consideration for a Nobel prize.

  127. 127.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    It’s only marble till you quarry it
    Take up your chisel & you worry it
    Into a statue then they jury it
    With so much fawning that you’re sorry it
    Every saw the daylight so you bury it
    Like a Nobel Laureate

  130. 130.

    John D

    @kindness:

    I could see Dylan winning a poetry prize. Literature though? Not so much.

    Given that the VERY FIRST Nobel for Literature prize was for poetry (and it’s been awarded many, many, many times since for poetry), trying to claim that poetry isn’t literature is going to get short shrift with the Nobel Foundation.

  131. 131.

    jl

    When the media does spots on his prize, they should take the trouble to play something with lyrics that Dylan wrote, rather than when he covered old standards. Other than that, I have no problem. I see some famous lyrics in the comments above. Shouldn’t be hard to find something.

  132. 132.

    SatanicPanic

    He’s not my favorite, but I never thought being poetry stops being poetry because it’s set to music.

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

    @oldster:

    When you look at the list of people to whom they could have given the award, it contains many people who deserved this honor more than he did.

    From the Guardian, a discussion of who was in the running before Dylan was announced.

    What are the odds for this year’s prize?

    Ladbrokes today has Ngugi wa Thiong’o as as favourite at 7/2, with Haruki Murakami tied with the Syrian poet Adonis at 6/1.

    Italian scholar Claudio Magris jumped from 33/1 to 12/1 this morning, while Don DeLillo was a surprise entrant into the top 10 earlier in the week….

    On the Guardian books desk we’re hoping for someone from the world beyond Europe. A woman would be good, too – Svetlana Alexievich’s win last year only went a tiny way to addressing the historical imbalance. But if it must be a white European bloke, how about Spain’s Javier Marías (currently 16/1)?.

    Which works of these individuals do you recommend?

  137. 137.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    @oldster:

    When you look at the list of people to whom they could have given the award, it contains many people who deserved this honor more than he did.

    Whatever, chuckles. When I look at the list of people to whom they have given the award in the past, it contains many people who deserved the honor less than he does.

  138. 138.

    cokane

    btw playwrights have also won the nobel for literature — writing meant to be heard and not read

  140. 140.

    SFAW

    @SatanicPanic:

    Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

    Author (I believe) of “Still You Turn Me On” and these immortal lyrics:

    Every day a little sadder
    A little madder
    Someone get me a ladder

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @low-tech cyclist:

    Yeah, I’m good with Dylan getting the Nobel. A way better choice than frickin’ Kissinger.

    Well, Kissinger’s band wasn’t as good as the musicians who played with Dylan.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Javier Marias’ Your Face Tomorrow trilogy is transcendent literature, even in English translation.

    Thanks for the recommendation. I will check it out.

  143. 143.

    burnspbesq

    I was expecting it to be Don DeLillo, who is richly deserving. And if one were to hypothesize a Nobel for music, Dylan wouldn’t be at the head of the line; John Adams, Wayne Shorter, Kaija Saariaho, Steve Reich, and Bruce Springsteen would all, in my estimation, be at least equally entitled to consideration.

    But I’m OK with it.

  146. 146.

    bluefish

    Let’s hope he shows up to make an acceptance speech and is as notoriously cranky as always. Don’t Look Back. I was happier with Saul Bellow’s win but that’s just me and, anyway, good for him. And for us? Wonder if folks are trying to raise our ground in the dust spirits on this side of the pond. Dylan’s lyrics certainly seem to fit the current moment like a custom tailor made suit.

  147. 147.

    Doug!

    @Gin & Tonic:

    No, but that is perhaps the silliest of all the prizes because of the age limit, and because it celebrates individual “genius” rather than (usually group) accomplishment.

  148. 148.

    Jeffro

    Jason Isbell tweeted something about songwriters and musicians “having come a long way from being treated almost like court jesters”. Not a bad insight.

  149. 149.

    Durindal

    Never been a huge Dylan fan myself – a few songs here and there but that’s about it. … But I suppose that a bunch of dudes in Sweden know better than me. And I’m still upset that they took so long to recognize Doris Lessing… Suppose I really need to let that one go… Anyway

  150. 150.

    jk

    @Doug!: @burnspbesq:

    I like DeLillo. Also too, William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon. So many worthy novelists, poets, and playwrights (ie the recently departed Edward Albee). I love Dylan, but this choice was absurd.

  152. 152.

    jk

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I know that. Those names were simply the first ones that came to my mind when I thought of the most deserving candidates for this prize. I’m a big fan of Gaddis and he got screwed over by these douchebags.

  153. 153.

    Keith G

    In 1963, not a lot of other songs were being written in the USA with the content of Masters of War….

    You fasten the triggers
    For the others to fire
    Then you set back and watch
    When the death count gets higher
    You hide in your mansion
    As young people’s blood
    Flows out of their bodies
    And is buried in the mud

    Dylan helped build a intellectual space that nurtured some of the changes which were the trademarks of 60’s culture and beyond, here and in many other lands.

  154. 154.

    chromeagnomen

    @The Moar You Know: completely agree. i go back to the beginning with dylan. remarkable song writer and lyricist. but—song writer and lyricist. if you want to stay within these narrow confines, he deserves some kind of award for a lifetime of poignant protest songs, heartfelt relationship stories, keen insights into human behavior. but if one ventures outside the music, hthe depth of his insights diminishes markedly. i don’t fault him for this; if you try to get too deep a message into a song, you run the very real risk of losing the easy grasp of everyday experience that is a necessary for public consumption.

  156. 156.

    John Manchester

    These just from “Visions of Johanna”

    Lights flicker from the opposite loft
    In the this one the heat pipes just cough
    The country music station pays soft
    But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off

    The ghost of lectricty howls in the bones of her face

    But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues
    You can tell by the way she smiles

  157. 157.

    TriassicSands

    @The Moar You Know:

    Discredits the entire institution and meaning of the Nobel.

    I agree. There are been worse Nobel selections, but without taking anything away from Dylan’s songwriting, a Nobel prize for “literature” is not appropriate.

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    Just watched PBS SnoozeHour on B. Dylan.

    And am just smiling. Will be smiling all evening. So happy he is getting the recognition, and before an obit.

    Mr. Dylan performs in Las Vegas tonight, and will be in Indio (Palm Springs) this weekend.

    And he maintains a vigorous touring schedule. Hope he keeps at it. Inaudible as his speech/singing at concerts may be.

  160. 160.

    debbie

    @Cermet:

    His lyrics alone stand as poetry (esp. Every Grain of Sand and Chimes of Freedom). It’s high time they’ve been acknowledged as literature.

  161. 161.

    JR in WV

    @Brachiator:

    Well, since I’ve never heard of this Irvine Welsh guy, Fuck him. Bob Dylan is a genius, and as literate as any songwriter around anywhere, ever. Most deserved not scientific Nobel Prize in a very long time.

    Hadn’t heard about the lobotomy guy getting the Prize for medicine, that’s pretty ironic.

    Ah, looked him up, author of Trainspotting, which I do know. I’ve always been terrible, completely unable to connect most authors -> books. Also have trouble with people’s names. Don’t care for the book at all, tho. So totally wrong about Bob, jealous I’m thinking.

  162. 162.

    JR in WV

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I’ve liked and respected Dylan since 1968, when I went to college, and the folk/rock movement was swelling. Have seen him somewhat recently, our seats were just right of the sound box, so we heard it as well as anyone could.

    If you write as much as he does, impossible not to sound like random other songwriters from time to time. Complaining about that is like complaining about plot devices in SF/Fantasy being copied.

  163. 163.

    JR in WV

    @cmorenc:

    You never know. Maybe he had a migraine and tried to do a good show anyway. He’s obviously an emotional guy, maybe something went wrong in his life before the show.

    Did he perform well, or just go through the motions? You don’t say. I bet the sounds were good, as good as he could make them under the circumstances.

    We saw the Dead several times, and they weren’t always great by any means. I was a huge Marcia Ball fan, but when we saw her from the 4th row, she was completely detached from the band and the crowd. Very sorry performance. But I don’t hate her for that… she played the piano well, sang her songs. Just didn’t have that fire.

    Dr John. Great live performer, stupendous talent, but the albums, nothing there, ever. Music is performance, it’s hard. Dylan creates new music all the time, tours all the time, year ’round. You can’t be hot and on the beat 24/7/365 for decades every show.

    So ease up on him.

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