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Source: (consider it) Thread: You've got a lot of nerve
Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433

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So His Bobness is a Nobel Laureate. But who is he ... what does he write? Is it literature? Or is his life the poem? Where do his songs fit in?

And the voice? Is that in itself a poem, cracked like the sky with naked wonder?

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Zappa
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# 8433

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(oh ... and to guide your thoughts ... while I dance quietly at my desk with one hand waving free, albeit no longer silhouetted by the sea)

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lilBuddha
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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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Ariel
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# 58

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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...

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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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Ariel
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# 58

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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
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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]
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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Sarasa
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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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Sioni Sais
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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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Pigwidgeon

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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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Brenda Clough
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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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Ariel
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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
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Simply setting a poem to music removes it from consideration? That seems silly on the face of it.

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Ariel
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# 58

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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

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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. [Roll Eyes]

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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433

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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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lilBuddha
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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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Stetson
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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?
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Ariel
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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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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
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.

That probably fucks Homer's and Chaucer's CVs, too.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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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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Stetson
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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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Nicolemr
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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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Ariel
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# 58

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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.
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Ariel
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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.
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Sioni Sais
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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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hatless

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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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Humble Servant
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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.
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lilBuddha
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# 14333

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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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Ariel
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# 58

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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
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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.
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Dafyd
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# 5549

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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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Doc Tor
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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'.

[Roll Eyes]

(and for what it's worth, yes: totally deserved, and about time too.)

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lilBuddha
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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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Timothy the Obscure

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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.
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lilBuddha
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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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Dafyd
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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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Raptor Eye
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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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Golden Key
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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] , 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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Evangeline
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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.
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Lyda*Rose

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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

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mousethief

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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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no prophet's flag is set so...

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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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Stercus Tauri
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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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lilBuddha
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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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Zappa
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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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Barnabas62
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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?

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Timothy the Obscure

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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

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mousethief

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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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Timothy the Obscure

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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

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