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10-13-2016, 01:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-13-2016, 01:27 PM by Eric the Green.)
How Does It Feel? Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel in Literature
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSOCT. 13, 2016, 12:10 P.M. E.D.T.
Continue reading the main story
STOCKHOLM — Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for expanding the poetic possibilities of music with a body of work that includes "Like a Rolling Stone," ''Blowin' in the Wind" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" — a stunning announcement that marked the first time the award has gone to a musician.
Reporters and others who had gathered at the Swedish Academy's headquarters reacted with a loud cheer as the name of the singer and songwriter was read out.
Dylan, 75, is widely regarded as the most influential poet-musician of his generation.
His protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" became anthems for the U.S. anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. His densely poetic and image-rich "Mr. Tambourine Man" helped usher in the folk-rock movement. And his 1965 "Like a Rolling Stone," about a rich and pampered young woman forced to fend for herself, was pronounced the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.
Dylan is the first American winner of the Nobel literature prize since Toni Morrison in 1993.
The academy commended him for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
Dylan rarely gives interviews, and a representative said the musician had no immediate comment. He is on tour and was scheduled to play in Las Vegas on Thursday night.
The announcement angered some literary figures but seemed to please far more.
Dylan's impact on popular culture has been immense, his influence as a lyricist extending to nearly every major music figure and songwriter of the last 50 years, from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Ed Sheeran and beyond.
Generally described as a rock musician, Dylan has employed numerous musical styles, including country, gospel, blues, folk and pop. He pursued them all, sometimes separately and other times simultaneously, sometimes baffling and even angering his fans.
His songs can be snarling and accusatory ("Idiot Wind," ''Positively 4th Street"); apocalyptic ("A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"); dense and hallucinatory ("Desolation Row"); tender and wistful ("Visions of Johanna"); bracingly political ("Hurricane" and "Only a Pawn in their Game"); and enigmatic and absurdist ("Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again").
Some of his songs are studded with historical, literary or political references (Jack the Ripper, Captain Ahab, Shakespeare, Paul Revere, T.S. Eliot and Fidel Castro) and laced with sly humor. ("Highway 61 Revisited" opens with the line, "Oh, God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.' Abe said, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on.'" "Blowin' in the Wind" captured the hopes of the '60s civil rights movement, yet sounded as if it had been handed down through the oral tradition from another century, with lines like: "How many times must the cannon balls fly before they're forever banned?".........
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Rather ironic that as American politics, at least one side, devolves as completely in prose from the masterful oratory of Abraham Lincoln to its antithesis, an American who wrote some of the finest and most expressive lyrics gets the Novel Prize for literature.
A fusion of Abraham Lincoln and Bob Dylan as political language... wouldn't that be wonderful for a resolution of the 4T?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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It would speak from the better angels of our nature. May the winds of change blow!
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10-15-2016, 12:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-15-2016, 12:20 PM by Eric the Green.)
May we be "forever young!"
Bob Dylan & Friends perform "My Back Pages"! An all-star line-up including George Harrison, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Roger McGuinn and the house band of Booker T and the MGs @Dylan's 30th anniversary concert (1992)!
#BobDylan #guitar #guitarist #GeorgeHarrison #TomPetty #EricClapton #NeilYoung #BookerT #Music #MusicVideo
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So you see, Eric, sometimes the lyrics are more important than the music.
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(10-16-2016, 02:21 PM)taramarie Wrote: (10-16-2016, 02:04 PM)gabrielle Wrote: So you see, Eric, sometimes the lyrics are more important than the music.
Nice one. But the sound for some music he just does not understand as to why it sounds the way that it does. He refuses to understand. You do not have to like a certain type of music to understand why it is the way that it is. That seems to be his real misunderstanding.
Whenever I point out the great lyrics in a song he doesn't like (like for example the song I am about to post on the other thread), he says the music is more important than the lyrics. I don't think that is always the case. Bob Dylan's lyrics were brilliant, and the music was secondary. His singing voice is not conventionally beautiful.
But I like Bob Dylan's music and lyrics, and that of the Beastie Boys as well.
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10-17-2016, 12:22 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-17-2016, 12:00 PM by Eric the Green.)
(10-16-2016, 02:04 PM)gabrielle Wrote: So you see, Eric, sometimes the lyrics are more important than the music.
No, not at all! Only when considering a Nobel Prize for LITERATURE. They don't have a Nobel Prize for music. They do have Pulitzers, and Grammies, and Academy Awards, etc.
Dylan's music was as good and as important as his words. (Otherwise I would never have chosen any of his songs as "best ever;" but I did.)
If that weren't so, he would have just written books. Like what the rappers should do, in my opinion.
Arguably, in a piece like "Alice's Restaurant," the words are more important. But even then, it would never have worked for me without the jaunty and brilliant little tune.
Quote:Whenever I point out the great lyrics in a song he doesn't like (like for example the song I am about to post on the other thread), he says the music is more important than the lyrics. I don't think that is always the case. Bob Dylan's lyrics were brilliant, and the music was secondary. His singing voice is not conventionally beautiful.
Good words can be appreciated in their own right. I am a writer as well as a composer. But I do not like or give credit to music that is not good, as I hear it. It does not matter what Taramarie's views about me are.
Dylan's singing was not conventionally beautiful. Now that he's older, it's sometimes not beautiful in any sense. But what is conventionally beautiful, has nothing to do with beauty in any case. Beauty is something you hear and know for yourself. It is not something imposed by convention. Often his singing is moving and I hear it as beautiful. Heavy metal screamers? Not so much. Not so much.
When I hear grunge (including the Beastie Boys, most-likely), I don't hear beauty. But you pointed out an artist who did a grunge song and brought out its good potential. You've also pointed out some songs (though not most of them) from the "lost" era that I agree with you on. If my opinion is that pop music has generally declined since the 2T (with some faint indications of minor improvement in the 4T), that is only a generality. There are the exceptions, and there are the fringes. As I've have already, hmmmm, said........
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We are in an age of cultural decline, at least in the USA. Our politics, our public discourse, our movies, our television, our focus on celebrity; it seems clear. American pop music is just part of the general trend.
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People dissatisfied with the present need look to the past to find the gems. Ironically the Internet gives excellent access to antiquity, access once available only after costly travel and difficult searches.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Quote:Days after being awarded the literature prize, Bob Dylan has yet to get in touch with the Swedish Academy, or indicate whether he will attend the celebrations
Nobel panel gives up knockin' on Dylan's door
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(10-16-2016, 02:48 PM)taramarie Wrote: (10-16-2016, 02:39 PM)gabrielle Wrote: (10-16-2016, 02:21 PM)taramarie Wrote: (10-16-2016, 02:04 PM)gabrielle Wrote: So you see, Eric, sometimes the lyrics are more important than the music.
Nice one. But the sound for some music he just does not understand as to why it sounds the way that it does. He refuses to understand. You do not have to like a certain type of music to understand why it is the way that it is. That seems to be his real misunderstanding.
Whenever I point out the great lyrics in a song he doesn't like (like for example the song I am about to post on the other thread), he says the music is more important than the lyrics. I don't think that is always the case. Bob Dylan's lyrics were brilliant, and the music was secondary. His singing voice is not conventionally beautiful.
But I like Bob Dylan's music and lyrics, and that of the Beastie Boys as well.
Ah I see. I agree with you. Some artists are just way more skilled at writing than singing or vise versa. That should be plainly obvious. You cannot dismiss a song entirely just because the music is according to Eric more important. Lyrics give meaning to a song as much as the emotion given from the music. So they are equally as important for a song that does have lyrics. I think both deserve to be analyzed for what they are separately and as one and understood for what they (music and lyrics) are trying to convey.
On a personal note I could not name one song by Bob. The males of my generation were obsessed with the Beastie Boys when I was a teenager. Us girls liked bsb more lol.
He was one of my favorites as a teenager.
Dylan was the foremost folk singer of his generation:
Then he pissed off all his folk fans by going electric. And pop music was revolutionized by this fusion of folk and rock:
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10-18-2016, 02:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-18-2016, 02:06 AM by gabrielle.)
(10-17-2016, 12:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (10-16-2016, 02:04 PM)gabrielle Wrote: So you see, Eric, sometimes the lyrics are more important than the music.
No, not at all! Only when considering a Nobel Prize for LITERATURE. They don't have a Nobel Prize for music. They do have Pulitzers, and Grammies, and Academy Awards, etc.
Dylan's music was as good and as important as his words. (Otherwise I would never have chosen any of his songs as "best ever;" but I did.)
If that weren't so, he would have just written books. Like what the rappers should do, in my opinion.
Arguably, in a piece like "Alice's Restaurant," the words are more important. But even then, it would never have worked for me without the jaunty and brilliant little tune.
Quote:Whenever I point out the great lyrics in a song he doesn't like (like for example the song I am about to post on the other thread), he says the music is more important than the lyrics. I don't think that is always the case. Bob Dylan's lyrics were brilliant, and the music was secondary. His singing voice is not conventionally beautiful.
Good words can be appreciated in their own right. I am a writer as well as a composer. But I do not like or give credit to music that is not good, as I hear it. It does not matter what Taramarie's views about me are.
Dylan's singing was not conventionally beautiful. Now that he's older, it's sometimes not beautiful in any sense. But what is conventionally beautiful, has nothing to do with beauty in any case. Beauty is something you hear and know for yourself. It is not something imposed by convention. Often his singing is moving and I hear it as beautiful. Heavy metal screamers? Not so much. Not so much.
When I hear grunge (including the Beastie Boys, most-likely), I don't hear beauty. But you pointed out an artist who did a grunge song and brought out its good potential. You've also pointed out some songs (though not most of them) from the "lost" era that I agree with you on. If my opinion is that pop music has generally declined since the 2T (with some faint indications of minor improvement in the 4T), that is only a generality. There are the exceptions, and there are the fringes. As I've have already, hmmmm, said........
"Beauty is something you hear and know for yourself." I agree with that part of your statement.
Speaking of grunge, Bob Dylan may not dislike it quite as much as you do. It is said that after hearing the song "Polly" by Nirvana, he was quoted as saying, "That kid has heart." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain
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(10-17-2016, 12:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: We are in an age of cultural decline, at least in the USA. Our politics, our public discourse, our movies, our television, our focus on celebrity; it seems clear. American pop music is just part of the general trend.
So said every elder generation ever. Socrates spouted this same usual "KIDS THESE DAYS!!!" rant. 
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