Bob Dylan gets Nobel Prize for Literature

[passedit]

Makes more sense than Kissinger and Obama getting the Peace Prize. Great quote form Tom Waits sums it up

[Main Street]

It's a most inspired Nobel choice to give the prize to Bob, a left field  choice but so blatantly obvious when you think about it.
Things I've learned today,
Day of the Locusts was written around his experience when receiving an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1970 (or so)
and he wrote Wheels of Fire which somehow I mistakingly thought was an all original by the Band.

[omaghjoe]

Naw I like aul scraggly Bob, tho maybe not to the the degree of ET. He is a genius song writer to be fair so I was probably being a wee bit disingenuous.

But I maintain my point that he should be nowhere near this award. I was wondering how they arrived at this conclusion so I looked it up, there's a mix of people including academics and the actual Nobel people who decide on it. Anyway we wont find out their rationale for another 50years..(more secretive that the government).

Havent read that many winners (most arent even in English remember) but I read some VS Naipaul a few years back and it was amazing, not overly flowery or anything but could evoke great images with his words and you always felt that he was depicting things exactly how he wanted you to pick them up, but the best bit was the way it flowed..... all in all just a cut or 10 above most books you'd read. So while I do think that Bob's stuff could be considered poetry I dont think that its overly great to the level of VS Naipaul. I would put John Montague ahead of him for instance and he's good but nowhere near a Nobel prize. Now fair enough its just my opinion and all and your all entitled to yours on this, but I would bet most academics would be rather bemused by this award.

When all is said and done, this award was more about the award itself than the recipient.

[Orior]

My favourite Dylan lyric;

Lay lady lay
Lay your big ass across my bed

Well, that is what I heard anyway.

[johnneycool]

I think its fantastic that stuffy old literature buffs have opened their eyes to modern forms of art, even though Dylan has been on the go 40 odd years.

I can only hope that the other superstar lyricist Frank Zappa gets his just recognition next year!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiu6DFXeF9A

[AZOffaly]

I think it's entirely fitting. The best, most meaningful songs have lyrics that mean something, no less than poetry or the best prose. No doubt Dylan's work as a lyricist buts him up there with the best modern day (sic) poets, so I think it's very appropriate.

Read the words without the music, and you might as well be reading any 20th century poet laureate.

[Denn Forever]

Has Leonard Cohen won it?  Now He'd deserve it.

[Main Street]

I think it's entirely fitting. The best, most meaningful songs have lyrics that mean something, no less than poetry or the best prose. No doubt Dylan's work as a lyricist buts him up there with the best modern day (sic) poets, so I think it's very appropriate.

Read the words without the music, and you might as well be reading any 20th century poet laureate.

i don't disagree with you but I do a bit at the same time.
I think it's  hard to separate his lyrics from the music, there is so much nuanced in the music,  in the delivery, that affects the interpretation of the lyrics.
I think the prize doesn't separate that context.
His award was for "having created new poetic expression within the great American song tradition".

[BarryBreensBandage]

On the evening of the announcement (October 13), Leonard Cohen was speaking in Los Angeles at a playback and Q&A for his forthcoming album, 'You Want It Darker'. Giving his thoughts on Dylan's award, Leonard said "To me [the award] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain".

[5 Sams]

I have a wide range of musical tastes as a few lads on here would know but I'm afraid I dont get Bob..

[BarryBreensBandage]

I have a wide range of musical tastes as a few lads on here would know but I'm afraid I dont get Bob..

Dylan once said that he liked it when people didn't get his lyrics because half the time he didn't get them either.
That's probably why I listened more to him. Fuzzy Logic.

[muppet]

I think it's entirely fitting. The best, most meaningful songs have lyrics that mean something, no less than poetry or the best prose. No doubt Dylan's work as a lyricist buts him up there with the best modern day (sic) poets, so I think it's very appropriate.

Read the words without the music, and you might as well be reading any 20th century poet laureate.

I think this award is about more than Dylan.

Don't get me wrong I think he is a great choice, but I think it was to acknowledge an entire genre and not just one individual. By honouring Dylan, an artist that very few would disagree was worthy, they have opened a new door for everyone. And again Dylan kicked that door open.

You'd never know where it could lead: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/jul/01/highereducation.news

...Mr Heaney, a former professor of poetry at Oxford University and winner of the 1995 Nobel prize for literature, replied: "There is this guy Eminem. He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around his generation."...

Anyway, here is my favourite Dylan song, in five versions, all class imho:

All along the watchtower

Bob Dylan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzanOzyqgasc (sorry I can't find anything older)

Hendrix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY&list=RDTLV4_xaYynY

U2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l16zRFGNK5A

Eddie Vedder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3oVvjyT8Oo

Neil Young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DBewzgXgYk

[The Iceman]

  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

I might have thought you'd be a fan given the clearly biblical undertones and foundation of most of his work?
You should read up on it...he's loved in Catholic circles

[easytiger95]

there is a book I always meant to read - "Tangled Up in the Bible"- which is basically a study of the biblical imagery in his work - you haven't read it Iceman, have you?

[whitey]

I was at a conference years ago and Rubin Carter....the Hurricane....was the motivational speaker.

One of the lads I worked with was from New Jersey and his wife's Uncle has worked on the case

He claimed that they had all types of evidence that never made it to trial and that the Hurricane was actually as guilty as sin and possibly even implicated in other murders-lol