• BC
    13.6k
    The Nobel Academy can pick whoever they damn well please, of course. And there's nothing about that their choices the make them the last word. I was surprised they picked Dylan.

    I like early Dylan. His early songs are the only lyrics I know. "Are song lyrics the equivalent of poetry?" the New York Times asked. Aren't song lyrics always poetry, even if the lyrics are very bad, or very obscure, or very vulgar, or very pedestrian, or very, very whatever?

    This line, "And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin", has the density of meaning one would expect from significant poetry. Don't read your fortune yet because 'The wheel' [of fortune] 'is still in spin' is a very sophisticated construction -- it sounds like "stilling spin", a rearrangement of "still spinning". That isn't the in the text, of course, just the way it sounds.

    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is rapidly fadin’
    And the first one now will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin’

    Sure, that's poetry -- and perfectly fine poetry at that.

    But the Nobel... I wouldn't have voted for him getting it, much as I like his early stuff. The problem is not in the quality of the lyrics. The problem is in the genre: Dylan wouldn't have become rich and famous standing up in coffee houses reciting his poetry. Nobody else has in America, why would he?

    Dylan, like all great song writers/singers, writes material and sets it to music. It's real art -- it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in. There have been and are many great lyricists; maybe the Nobel Foundation should add that to its award categories.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Dylan, like all great song writers/singers, writes material and sets it to music. It's real art -- it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in. There have been and are many great lyricists; maybe the Nobel Foundation should add that to its award categories.Bitter Crank

    I guess you have to ask what makes poetry Nobel worthy versus just perfectly fine poetry. I am partial to his lyrics here:

    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 of course the first three "stanzas" of that song (poem?) are iconic:

    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
  • Buxtebuddha
    1.7k
    90% of modern poetry is trash, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when bad poetry is thought to be Nobel prize winning-worthy.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    My all-time favorite radio single - the Hendrix version, mind you:

    'There must be some kind of way out of here'
    Said the joker to the thief
    'There's too much confusion
    I can't get no relief
    Businessmen, they drink my wine
    Plowmen dig my earth
    None of them along the line
    Know what any of it is worth'

    'No reason to get excited'
    The thief he kindly spoke
    'For there are many here among us
    Who think that life is but a joke
    But you and I, we've been through that
    And this is not our fate
    So let us stop talking falsely now
    The hour is getting late....'

    Overall, I think it's a pretty strange choice for the committee, even though I can see Dylan's importance in the cultural history of the 20th C.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    I expect they are looking for a candidate who has had a significant impact on culture and Dylan could well be the most influential poet of the last century. Interestingly he is only the second person to be awarded a Nobel prize and an Oscar, the other person was George Bernard Shaw.

    It isn't the words themselves which are remarkable, although it is good poetry, it is the performance, performance art. Some of the most highly regarded poets are enjoyed reading out their own poetry as performance art, Dylan Thomas comes to mind, or T S Elliot. It is the atmosphere, the mood that is created, a living interactive performance.
  • Benkei
    7.7k
    But no Philip Roth... ok...? :-x
  • Janus
    16.3k


    For me most of Dylan's poetry is lacking in depth and subtlety, it's mostly facile and forced. If you want compare him with other singer/ songwriters, I would say both Leonard Cohen and Jim Morrison are far better as poets than Dylan. But none of them compare, as poets, to the best of the poets of the mid to late 20th Century. There was a rumor a couple or three years ago that he was being considered for the Nobel Prize. I thought it was a joke then, and was convinced it had been when nothing came of it. If it is true that he will be awarded the prize then I think it's a joke now, too; only in a different sense.
    :-}
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    Jim Morrison? Really? 'Like a dog without a bone?'
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    Jim Morrison for surrealism perhaps. We each have our favourite artists, or musicians. I think that particularly in the case of music it is the music which grabbed us most during our formative years. Bob Dylan passed me by at the time, but I've discovered an appreciation in later years. For me it was Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie( in that order). Although Bob Marley was always there in the background and the depth of feeling and meaning in his Redemption Song is always moving to hear for me.

    Opinion of Bob Dylan is divided for cultural reasons which occurred at the time of his rise in the folk movement. But for whatever reasons he became, or was perceived as, the most influential artist in music in the late 20th century, this cannot be denied.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Your homework for tonight:

    Compare and contrast Dylan's The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    It's a disgrace the Nobel Prize for Literature got thrown away this year.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    The biggest disgrace regarding the Nobels was with the peace prize going to Obama the moment he took office and prior to his doing anything. Obama then proceeded to engage in all sorts of wars while in possession of the Peace Prize. The point of giving it to him was to try and dissuade him from continuing fighting various wars and to distinguish him from Bush. Regardless, the award was used for political purposes and it lost significant credibility IMHO.

    Regarding Dylan, I'm not sure he's a poet per se, but he's credited with generally elevating popular music to another level. Dylan's music did everything from protesting wars to advocating for civil rights to meaningfully describing the human experience, which was a far advancement of the doo wop era of 50s music. Surely Dylan wasn't the first to do this, but he was one of, if not the most, important person to do that. Why he's being giving the award now is odd, considering his best days are behind him and this appears more to be a lifetime achievement award than in something he's done currently. It might be that those on the Nobel committee are old hippies who now have the authority to promote their favorite son.

    Jim Morrison, while on my avatar, is no Dylan. While Dylan represented a headiness and a change in the mindset of American culture, Morrison represented excess and carpe diem ("I woke up this morning and got myself a beer. The future's uncertain and the end is always near."). I'm a huge (and I mean huge) Doors fan, but Dylan runs circles around Morrison any day.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I don't see why we shouldn't consider lyrics literature. We don't need a category for lyrics that separates them from literature, as if they're not literature.
  • Ciceronianus
    3k
    Well, those not awarded this prize include Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Scott Fitzgerald, Dylan Thomas, W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad...to mention only those who wrote in English.

    Why be surprised that Dylan received it when they did not?
  • wuliheron
    440
    The Nobel committee has obviously been making more political choices in recent years and Dylan's poetry is extremely political. I believe they see themselves today as one of the few remaining ways to criticize the empire of the US where 60% of the population demands the government and mass media they call evil lie to them for their own protection. The arts are one remaining way to do this and, for example, Conan O'Brien does a regular routine where he has his staff record hundreds of "talking heads" news announcers all spouting the same B.S. verbatim. People just laugh and laugh....
  • jkop
    903
    Well, a literature prize seems more appropriate for Dylan than a prize for musicianship. His fans must be tone deaf.
  • jkop
    903
    it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in.Bitter Crank

    Right, but neither was the prize in economics, which is sponsored by a bank, not Alfred Nobel's will.
  • Barry Etheridge
    349


    He may not have the greatest singing voice but his musicianship has never been in doubt.
  • wuliheron
    440
    His musicianship has been widely criticized. He was never very good on harmonica and his guitar is pretty sloppy as well, at least, when he started out. Personally, I was grateful when his vocal cords were damaged in an accident because I sing and can't stand to listen to him screaming out those bad notes. However, there is no denying he is a great song writer as well as lyricist. His words often contain political references that the mainstream never grasped because he was not talking to them.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Great writer and singer and musician (and bandleader, producer, etc.) In my opinion.
  • wuliheron
    440
    No accounting for taste and, personally, I have no taste for accountants.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    One line, out of one song, out of context? Really? There is plenty of his poetry online for you to read if you are interested.

    It's always going to be a matter of taste anyway; although as Kant points out regarding aesthetic judgement, we don't really believe it is merely a matter of taste.
  • wuliheron
    440
    Every classic work of art including music has turned out to express a Fractal Dragon equation. Literature tends to express multi-fractals with Finnegan's Wake being by far the best example. The book I'm writing is based on the Fractal Dragon of the Tao Te Ching and, combined with a sequel it should express a multi-fractal of a Fractal Dragon within a Mandelbrot.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    I assumed that you were referring to the lyrics of Doors songs, like Riders on the Storm, from which that line was taken. But some of Dylan's songs, such as The Times They Are a'Changin, had a prophetic quality, I don't see that in the Doors' songs (although still think it's a dubious decision by the Committee.)
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Jim Morrison published at least one book of his poetry (as did Leonard Cohen), did Dylan? His poetry is far better than his song lyrics. Song lyrics generally do not hold up as poetry, anyway. Arguably Dylan was the better songwriter. He also has had a much longer career. But did he publish poetry as poetry? If not, then what was Dylan awarded the prize for?
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Sure, but I thought this category of the Nobel Prize was for Literature, not for prophecy or songwriting. I'm not saying that Morrison should have been awarded the prize. It should have gone to a real poet/ writer.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    The only text I can find of the actual award citation is 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    as Kant points out regarding aesthetic judgement, we don't really believe it is merely a matter of taste.John
    Kant should speak for himself.

    Well, and then we'll try to guess what he thinks as he continually revises it.
  • Janus
    16.3k

    So you've read CofJ then?
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    I have Dylan lyrics in my head many days. They're selling postcards of the hanging, today, but other days it can be Johnny's in the basement, or if you see her say hello, or Blind Willie McTell. (If any of us ever meet you'll have to hear me singing All along the watchtower, with Wayfarer on harmonies). To my mind he changed the way we think, and few people do that.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So you've read CofJ then?John

    Aesthetics was one of my areas of specialization, so yeah.
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