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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: You've got a lot of nerve
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I do not see any meaningful definition where Dylan is not a poet. And he has reached a larger audience and ignited more conversations about poetry than the majority of "proper" modern poets.
His subjects are no less serious, his reflections no less profound.
People confuse I like this for it is good.
Whilst there are arguments for what constitutes poetry and the borders by necessity are vague, Dylan rests well within them regardless.
His voice? His words fit his voice, but are not constrained by it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I admit to have never knowingly listened to any of Dylan's work (and I have no intention of checking out any YouTube links either) but this strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Anyone who writes pop songs is writing, on average, three-minute soundbites. I don't see how anyone can equate pop music with thoughtful, researched works of literature.
Poetry is something else but this is not what pop stars set out to do. I doubt very much that they set out to write moving and considered, original works of poetry then compose music that fits them.
A sign of the times, I suppose, and I doubt very much that disliking it is going to be at all fashionable or in step with modern thinking.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Bob Dylan is neither fashionable nor modern. In another century he would have stopped at writing poems. If what you mean by modern is post 19th century, then okay. But no-one does poetry any more.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
But no-one does poetry any more.
Really? I must tell that to the published poets I know.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I admit to have never knowingly listened to any of Dylan's work (and I have no intention of checking out any YouTube links either) but this strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Anyone who writes pop songs is writing, on average, three-minute soundbites. I don't see how anyone can equate pop music with thoughtful, researched works of literature.
Poetry is something else but this is not what pop stars set out to do. I doubt very much that they set out to write moving and considered, original works of poetry then compose music that fits them.
A sign of the times, I suppose, and I doubt very much that disliking it is going to be at all fashionable or in step with modern thinking.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Dylan isn't pop. Dylan is essentially a folk performer. Folk tells stories, poetry tells stories.
But dismissing pop assumes that all "proper" poetry has a gravitas that much of it clearly doesn't.
[ 13. October 2016, 17:21: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Christopher Ricks, former professor of English at Cambridge wrote a whole book arguing that Dylan is a poet. It's an interesting read.
To me poetry 'works' if it moves you and makes you see something, however insignificant in a different way. Simple 'pop' songs can do this, and Dylan is far more than a writer of simple pop songs.
I think my favourite lines are 'There's a lone soldier on the cross/
Smoke pouring out of a boxcar door'from Idiot Wind . Those two lines summon up so many images to me.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I admit to have never knowingly listened to any of Dylan's work (and I have no intention of checking out any YouTube links either) but this strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Anyone who writes pop songs is writing, on average, three-minute soundbites. I don't see how anyone can equate pop music with thoughtful, researched works of literature.
Poetry is something else but this is not what pop stars set out to do. I doubt very much that they set out to write moving and considered, original works of poetry then compose music that fits them.
A sign of the times, I suppose, and I doubt very much that disliking it is going to be at all fashionable or in step with modern thinking.
What you have failed to do there is establish what poetry and prose are that songwriting isn't. A lot of songwriting is trivial but then limericks are too. Everything published by Mills and Boon is trivial too. Many biographies are hagiographies or badly researched: the point I'm making is that poetry and prose are not better than lyrics by virtue of form.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I admit to have never knowingly listened to any of Dylan's work (and I have no intention of checking out any YouTube links either) but this strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Anyone who writes pop songs is writing, on average, three-minute soundbites. I don't see how anyone can equate pop music with thoughtful, researched works of literature.
Poetry is something else but this is not what pop stars set out to do. I doubt very much that they set out to write moving and considered, original works of poetry then compose music that fits them.
A sign of the times, I suppose, and I doubt very much that disliking it is going to be at all fashionable or in step with modern thinking.
I would never consider Dylan to be a "pop star" -- he's much deeper than that.
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics. (This should actually be easier for that than for most of us, since you won't be subconsciously hearing them sung.) He's been the voice for many of my generation.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There was a time when the poets were the bad boys -- Byron, Shelley, Keats. My argument is that rock and pop performers have completely taken over that role, leaving the poets to be ageing men doing sedate readings to small coffee-shop audiences.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But dismissing pop assumes that all "proper" poetry has a gravitas that much of it clearly doesn't.
Not at all. Would you care to define "proper" poetry?
I know aesthetic taste is a subjective area that varies wildly along the complete spectrum but I still fail to see how any song, pop or otherwise, can be considered literature. Simply because it's written down it qualifies for consideration and inclusion?
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Simply setting a poem to music removes it from consideration? That seems silly on the face of it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
If it's marketed primarily as a song it is is not primarily intended as literature.
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
My argument is that rock and pop performers have completely taken over that role, leaving the poets to be ageing men doing sedate readings to small coffee-shop audiences.
The poets I know are far from being aged men doing sedate readings to small coffee-shop audiences. Though maybe that's how it is in your area. My experience of it here is that it can be a lively, sometimes anarchic kind of scene, and that the push is generally from people younger than myself.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
And simply because you define Dylan's work as "pop" while proudly proclaiming you've never heard his music and have no intention of hearing it defines it beyond the pale? Sad, really, sad.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I admit to have never knowingly listened to any of Dylan's work (and I have no intention of checking out any YouTube links either) but this strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Anyone who writes pop songs is writing, on average, three-minute soundbites. I don't see how anyone can equate pop music with thoughtful, researched works of literature.
Poetry is something else but this is not what pop stars set out to do. I doubt very much that they set out to write moving and considered, original works of poetry then compose music that fits them.
A sign of the times, I suppose, and I doubt very much that disliking it is going to be at all fashionable or in step with modern thinking.
The problem here is "pop." Justin Bieber is pop. ABBA is pop. "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" is pop. Dylan set about exploding mythologies, and while he may have had an eye to his royalties, on the whole set about playing iconoclastically with expectations (of "pop" amongst other things ... though more often in interviews than lyrics). Very few of his songs were of the three minute "Love Love Me Do" genre (the early Beatles were pop, too). Ironically "Blowing in the Wind" was an exception - and what an exception. His songs socially commented, his songs interiorally monologued, his songs channeled Rimbaud as much as Guthrie but never Bieber.
His songs sometimes work as poems. Like Chaucer's and Keats' and God help us Blake's. His songs worked better as poems than Pam Ayres' or Helen Steiner Rice's of course, but they also work better as poems than about 85% of published poetry which is little more than stream of consciousness with line breaks and occasional odd spacings
that
work well in the mind o' the poet but are pretty
much random to anyone
else
He has had immeasurable impact sociologically, impact on literature, impact on politics (even when he rode others' waves) ... the list goes on.
He is a baird and a troubadour. He is a baird and a troubadour now being rightfully recognized as one of the giants of the latter half of the 20th and early 21st Century, perhaps beyond any other figure who has strung words together. As it happens I think his voice suits the snarls of post-modernity, but that's another story for now.
[ 13. October 2016, 17:47: Message edited by: Zappa ]
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
If it's marketed primarily as a song it is is not primarily intended as literature.
Same old rubbish argument as the Illustrator v. the "fine" artist.
Pretentious twaddle.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Ariel wrote:
quote:
If it's marketed primarily as a song it is is not primarily intended as literature.
So the Psalms don't qualify as literature then?
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
So the Psalms don't qualify as literature then?
More people are familiar with them in written form than in sung form (I think).
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
But no-one does poetry any more.
Really? I must tell that to the published poets I know.
It's not a living is it? Nor frequent. Nor do people get together in each other's homes and recite and listen. Just like people don't get out the music and gather around the piano to sing.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
So the Psalms don't qualify as literature then?
More people are familiar with them in written form than in sung form (I think).
You seem to be chaning your criteria. Originally, you wrote...
quote:
If it's marketed primarily as a song it is is not primarily intended as literature.
This makes the writer's intention the key. But, then you switich to saying that it's the form in which the audience is familiar with it.
In any event, are you now saying that, if future generations forget that Dylan's lines were ever sung, and only know them as written words, then they can qualify as literature?
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I think most Greek poetry was meant to be accompanied by harp.
What about the Childe ballads? The medieval troubadours?
Set to music or not set to music is a pretty silly distinction.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
In any event, are you now saying that, if future generations forget that Dylan's lines were ever sung, and only know them as written words, then they can qualify as literature?
Yes. Because they would be by then.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It's not a living is it? Nor frequent.
You may not think it's frequent, that's your experience, it isn't mine.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
If it's marketed primarily as a song it is is not primarily intended as literature.
Looks like the Swedish Academy don't think that way. After all a banker (Muhammed Yunus) was awarded the Peace Prize as was Al Gore for his climate change awareness work. They cast their net broad.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Has anyone counted or estimated how many songs Dylan has written? I would guess the answer is several thousand.
On the poet or not silliness, I believe he borrowed Dylan from Thomas.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Humble Servant
Shipmate
# 18391
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics.
That's exactly what they did on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening. They read them as poetry. And it was quite clear that they were not poetry, but song lyrics. Songs written to appeal to a mass adolescent audience for the purpose of making lots of money. Look at the other laureates and then ask yourself if Dylan really fits in up there. He might have been sold as a "spokesman for a generation", but he was just another pop singer with a pretty obvious political message. I have listened to some of his music, and I enjoy it for what it is.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Apr 2015
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics.
That's exactly what they did on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening. They read them as poetry. And it was quite clear that they were not poetry, but song lyrics. Songs written to appeal to a mass adolescent audience for the purpose of making lots of money. Look at the other laureates and then ask yourself if Dylan really fits in up there. He might have been sold as a "spokesman for a generation", but he was just another pop singer with a pretty obvious political message. I have listened to some of his music, and I enjoy it for what it is.
Again mistaking preference for relevance.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics. (This should actually be easier for that than for most of us, since you won't be subconsciously hearing them sung.) He's been the voice for many of my generation.
OK. (My objection to YouTube is basically that I have a limited bandwidth allowance.) Would you like to pick and link to three written-out songs that you think are particularly good and which in your view reflect why he should be nominated for the Nobel Prize and I will have a look.
FWIW I'll attempt to do this without preconceptions, although I do feel that songs belong in the Music category, not the Literature category.
Also FWIW here's a few opinions from some Irish writers, to add a little something to the debate.
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Humble Servant
Shipmate
# 18391
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics.
That's exactly what they did on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening. They read them as poetry. And it was quite clear that they were not poetry, but song lyrics. Songs written to appeal to a mass adolescent audience for the purpose of making lots of money. Look at the other laureates and then ask yourself if Dylan really fits in up there. He might have been sold as a "spokesman for a generation", but he was just another pop singer with a pretty obvious political message. I have listened to some of his music, and I enjoy it for what it is.
Again mistaking preference for relevance.
A charge which could be leveled at either side of this debate.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Apr 2015
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I know aesthetic taste is a subjective area that varies wildly along the complete spectrum but I still fail to see how any song, pop or otherwise, can be considered literature. Simply because it's written down it qualifies for consideration and inclusion?
Some songs:
They flee from me that sometime did me seek (Wyatt)
Adieu, farewell Earth's bliss (Nashe)
Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Full fathom five thy father lies (Both Shakespeare)
Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow (Campion)
Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon (Burns)
It seems perverse to exclude all of those from literature.
Sure, most pop is bad. Nine tenths of everything is bad. There are lots of novels and poems that are definitely literature that lie unread in old libraries because they're rubbish.
Dylan's Desolation Row is eleven minutes long on Highway 61 Revisited.
Certainly Dylan wrote his songs to be set to music and they don't work as well not set to music. Does that make them not literature? Shakespeare wrote his plays primarily to be performed not read.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Also FWIW here's a few opinions from some Irish writers, to add a little something to the debate.
And interestingly, only one of the eleven writers interviewed says he wouldn't have given Dylan the Nobel Prize.
And yet, what's the article's title? They could have called it 'About time too', or 'Totally deserved' or 'If you're going to give it to anyone, give it to Dylan'.
(and for what it's worth, yes: totally deserved, and about time too.)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
A charge which could be leveled at either side of this debate.
Actually, no. If you look at the history of poetry, Dylan fits quite nicely. It is only when people attempt to to tightly define that there is an issue.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics. (This should actually be easier for that than for most of us, since you won't be subconsciously hearing them sung.) He's been the voice for many of my generation.
OK. (My objection to YouTube is basically that I have a limited bandwidth allowance.) Would you like to pick and link to three written-out songs that you think are particularly good and which in your view reflect why he should be nominated for the Nobel Prize and I will have a look.
FWIW I'll attempt to do this without preconceptions, although I do feel that songs belong in the Music category, not the Literature category.
Also FWIW here's a few opinions from some Irish writers, to add a little something to the debate.
Suggestions:
1. "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall." As Dave Van Ronk noted, this is the song where Dylan first combined modernist poetry with folk music, taking the Child ballad "Lord Randall" as a template and spinning it into a meditation on mid-20th century alienation and terror.
2. "Tangled Up In Blue."
3. "Blind Willie McTell."
While all songs are better with music, I think those three read particularly well. If you haven't given up at that point, try "High Water Everywhere" as well.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
While all songs are better with music, I think those three read particularly well.
Nearly all spoken/written word is enhanced by music, it plays to the hardwiring in our brains.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Suggestions:
For what it's worth, the Oxford Book of American Poetry has Desolation Road.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
It's well deserved. Dylan's lyrics move people, they are art with depth.
The best hymn lyrics I know are there in 'Ev'ry Grain of Sand'.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Ariel--
You might have heard Dylan's music, without knowing it.
Examples, from his own site:
"The Times They Are A-Changin’"
"Blowin’ In The Wind"
YMMV as to how poetic they are.
Here's one of my favorites, 'cause it fits me ![[Biased]](wink.gif) , and it has really involved lyrics:
"My Back Pages"
FYI: Looks like Dylan has *all* of his lyrics on his site, under "Songs".
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Rather than checking out any YouTube links, try reading some of his lyrics.
That's exactly what they did on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening. They read them as poetry. And it was quite clear that they were not poetry, but song lyrics. Songs written to appeal to a mass adolescent audience for the purpose of making lots of money. Look at the other laureates and then ask yourself if Dylan really fits in up there. He might have been sold as a "spokesman for a generation", but he was just another pop singer with a pretty obvious political message. I have listened to some of his music, and I enjoy it for what it is.
It's amazing how many people said similar stuff about Shakespeare in his time, that he was crude, appealing to a mass audience of the lower classes, writing for money (which I believe he was), dashing out a bit of blank verse for a Shake-scene or two.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Yeah, Shakespeare was up there with Steven Spielberg. Very, very, popular, very commercial. He wouldn't have been on an Elizabethan Nobel prize committee's short list. He couldn't have written "thoughtful, researched works of literature" since his work wound up on the commercial stage where the blood from the last bear-baiting was fresh.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I was feeling conflicted about this (I can hardly bring myself to listen to Dylan--that "voice"!), but you all have made a pretty convincing case.
For my own part, I think "Like a Rolling Stone" reads very well as poetry. As I discovered when I tried to write a parody with the same structure. The man knew his way around the English language. I'd like to hear LaRS snarled by an angry young man or woman at a poetry slam. Done right it would bring the house down. Imho.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Some of these lyrics and songs bear up well. Over the years. Outside of specific contexts. Like a Rolling Stone holds up. We all probably have our preferences. FWIW, Ring Them Bells.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
I'm not qualified to say what is or isn't great literature or music or who deserves the prize. But when I watch my 3 year old grandson listening to Dylan I can see that he's hearing something that I can't hear; something is reaching him that absorbs his full attention, and he becomes serious and attentive, unlike any 3-year old I ever met before. Something is going on there, and I wonder if it might be the sound of great music and song.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Also FWIW here's a few opinions from some Irish writers, to add a little something to the debate.
I wonder if it is telling that of the very few who in that article disagree, the two who most strongly do are critics?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
The last edition of Bob Dylan's Lyrics, now fifteen years out of date, ran to 600 pages. The amazing Bob Dylan: All the Songs (Margotin & Guedon, 2015) an amazing analytical book, was just over 700 pages. Michael Gray's Bob Dylan Encyclopaedia (2006) is well over 700 pages. I emphasize again, his lyricism is not Justin Bieber or even Snoop Dogg ... some of it is lightweight, especially from 1979-90, but much is deeply symboliste with sometimes very tight schemes of rhyme, rhythm, and all other elements of poetry, ranging from one or two pieces of doggerel ("All the Tired Horses") to deeply prophetic apocalyticism ("Desolation Row"), love poetry ("If Not For You", "Visions of Johanna", "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" - a little longer then three minutes as it happens - "Mississippi")social comment ("Joey", "Hurricane," "With God on Our Side," "I Pity the Poor Immigrant") ballad ("Rosemary, Lilly and the Jack of Hearts," and much of his recent stuff like "Duquesne Whistle"), whimsy "If Dogs Run Free") metaphysics ("Chimes of Freedom," "I and I", "Every Grain of Sand"), tribute ("Lenny Bruce", "Roll on John") ... oh, eschatology, christology, hate ... whatever
If I were to have favourites the list would probably narrow down to two, "Chimes of Freedom" and "No Time to Think" - oh and "To Ramona" - but tomorrow is a long time and that might change.
Oh ... and duration ... three minutes? Lets have a look just the representative songs I've named, shall we?
- "Desolation Row" 11'20"
- "If Not For You" yup, 2'42"
- "Visions of Johanna" 7'33 (I named a daughter after that one)
- "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" 11'21"
- "Mississippi" 5'21"
- "Joey" 11'06"
- "Hurricane" 8'35"
- "With God on Our Side," 9'28"
- "I Pity the Poor Immigrant" 4'26"
- "Rosemary, Lilly and the Jack of Hearts" 8'52"
- "Duquesne Whistle" 5'44"
- "If Dogs Run Free" (Yup - not a great one ...) 3'39"
- "Chimes of Freedom" 7'09"
- "I and I" 5'20"
- "Every Grain of Sand" 6'02"
- "Lenny Bruce" 4'36"
- "Roll on John" 7'26"
- "To Ramona" - yes! 3'46"!
- "Tonight I'll be Staying Here With You" - Yes! 3'23
I could mention about 500 more songs spanning five decades ...
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
I was amusing myself thinking about His Bobship's probable reaction to this, just playing around with some of his words. My favourite memory-bites are
quote:
Something is happening but you don't know what it is
and
quote:
And if my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's all right ma, it's life and life only
I'm more attracted by his early protest songs than the later work. But I played the vinyl off the transitional Highway 61 Revisited. Bob was and is special and I'm not that bothered whether his words are classified as lyrics or poetry. Many of them still strike me as demonstrating a remarkable gift.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Dylan is not just important to pop music (really, he was only a major pop star for a few years in the 1960s anyway). He's had a significant influence on literary poetry as well, especially on the way poetry has become a performance art over the past few decades--that would not have happened if the singer-songwriter movement he spawned had not brought out the vocal side of poetry, as opposed to the printed page. The beat poets contributed to that too, but Dylan did it in a bigger way.
An I suspect that if you asked even those more "literary" poets born after, say, 1950 if Dylan was an influence, most would say yes.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Dylan is not just important to pop music (really, he was only a major pop star for a few years in the 1960s anyway).
Which years would those be?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
1964-67, really. He had hits then--some his own records, others covers by other artists. After the motorcycle accident he was something other than a pop star.
[ 14. October 2016, 04:14: Message edited by: Timothy the Obscure ]
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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