Bob Dylan gets Nobel Prize for Literature

[easytiger95]

Worth a thread - His Bobness finally gets recognised for being the supreme poet of the past 50 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/arts/music/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-literature.html?_r=0

A few of my favourite lines

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

"In a little hill top village they gambled for my clothes, I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose"

"Princes on a steeple and all the pretty people, they're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made"

"I don't compromise, and I don't pretend, and I don't even care, if I see her again - most of the time"

"The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face"

"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings, steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

"Crash on the levee momma, water's gonna over throw, swamps gonna rise and no boats gonna row"

"There must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the thief"

"Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer, It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there"

"When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too, and your gravity fails and negativity won't pull you through, don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue, they've got some hungry women there and they'll really make a mess out of you."


Hundreds of others I could think of.

Congrats Bob.

[The Gs Man]

A lyrical genius indeed.

Well deserved.

"When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?"

[Declan]

Yep - great stuff

[omaghjoe]

   Should be in the WTF thread!

Bizarre, tho I'm no literature buff I would find it hard to believe that there are no more deserving writers out there than a chap who wrote a few good pop songs.

I get the impression that the Peace prizes these days was going more towards the latest medias hero for politics our human rights or whatever (Obama, Malala, etc). For whatever the reason, maybe to raise its profile for funding I dont know, but looks like the literature prize is heading the same direction

[blewuporstuffed]

  Should be in the WTF thread!

Bizarre, tho I'm no literature buff I would find it hard to believe that there are no more deserving writers out there than a chap who wrote a few good pop songs.

I get the impression that the Peace prizes these days was going more towards the latest medias hero for politics our human rights or whatever (Obama, Malala, etc). For whatever the reason, maybe to raise its profile for funding I dont know, but looks like the literature prize is heading the same direction

OmaghJoe,
Take some time and read some Dylan lyrics.

he is certainly up there with any poet or writer in any genre

[The Gs Man]

  Should be in the WTF thread!

Bizarre, tho I'm no literature buff I would find it hard to believe that there are no more deserving writers out there than a chap who wrote a few good pop songs.

I get the impression that the Peace prizes these days was going more towards the latest medias hero for politics our human rights or whatever (Obama, Malala, etc). For whatever the reason, maybe to raise its profile for funding I dont know, but looks like the literature prize is heading the same direction

A few good pop songs??

Ah jaysus man!  You're killing me here.

[MoChara]

  Should be in the WTF thread!

Bizarre, tho I'm no literature buff I would find it hard to believe that there are no more deserving writers out there than a chap who wrote a few good pop songs.

I get the impression that the Peace prizes these days was going more towards the latest medias hero for politics our human rights or whatever (Obama, Malala, etc). For whatever the reason, maybe to raise its profile for funding I dont know, but looks like the literature prize is heading the same direction

While I'd agree with you in general, I disagree about Dylan the man's fantastic.

[bennydorano]

Lifetime achievement award or anything specific?

Never done much for me tbh but I can appreciate his work.

[easytiger95]

They give it for the body of work Benny, not specific pieces.

Joe, stick to the quantum physics - literature and music doesn't seem to be your bag. A few good pop songs!! Though, to be fair to the man, his genius was that he could mix genres, and he has written some great "pop" songs - and they have been covered by so many great artists.

But if you don't think the following is literature, then I despair of you.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more
Person crying

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only

[easytiger95]

Or how about

Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when 'neath the trees of Eden

The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden

With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden

The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden

The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden

The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden

At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden

[BennyCake]

I'm a fan of Dylan but who gives a shite about this.
Sure Hitler got Man of The Year in the 30's and a few US presidents the Peace Prize while bombing half the world.

[ONeill]

"Oh babe, I wanna put my log in your fireplace."
(Kiss, 'Burn Bitch Burn')

[BarryBreensBandage]

"She's a humdinger, folk singer"

[BarryBreensBandage]

I always considered this the male equivalent of that female angst anthem by Gloria Gaynor, "I will survive", made all the better by the Idontgiveashit attitude.

Don't think twice, it's alright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Y3KfJs6T0

[moysider]

Great.
A lot of people hating on this, but how many of ye have read the stuff by people that have won the literature prize in the past?
Golding's Lord of The Flies in school and some Seamus Heaney poems maybe?