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Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Bob Dylan

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I'd say he definitely contributed to it but the change in popular music is undoubtedly more in the hands of Elvis and the Beatles.
I'll give you Elvis, but the Beatles are deeply indebted to Bob Dylan. He was the one who first got them seriously high in 1964. And:

"It seemed to go on and on forever. It was just beautiful ... He showed all of us that it was possible to go a little further." —McCartney on "Like a Rolling Stone"

“I had a sort of professional songwriter's attitude to writing pop songs,” said John Lennon. “We would turn out a certain style of song for a single... I'd have a separate songwriting John Lennon who wrote songs for the meat market, and I didn’t consider them (the lyrics or anything) to have any depth at all … Then I started being me about the songs, not writing them objectively, but subjectively. … I'd started thinking about my own emotions. … Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself. … It was Dylan who helped me realise that.”

In the mid-60s, Dylan did more to make rock and roll (and so other pop music) literate and provocative than almost anyone ever has. Certainly his influence was far greater and more direct than anyone else doing interesting things at the time.
 

tanooki27

Member
I'll give you Elvis, but the Beatles are deeply indebted to Bob Dylan. He was the one who first got them seriously high in 1964. And:

"It seemed to go on and on forever. It was just beautiful ... He showed all of us that it was possible to go a little further." —McCartney on "Like a Rolling Stone"



In the mid-60s, Dylan did more to make rock and roll (and so other pop music) literate and provocative than almost anyone ever has. Certainly his influence was far greater and more direct than anyone else doing interesting things at the time.

plus he turned them on to weed
 
Sure why not...his writing, in my opinion, is the strength of his art. The rest, has never clicked with me, particularly his singing...
 

Ducarmel

Member
Deserved love dylan as I get older.

But it does seem like a make up reward/life time achievement. I imagine here on out the Nobel prize for literature will always feel like that.
 

thefro

Member
Lin-Manuel Miranda has something to aim for now after he completes his PEGOT at the Oscars.

Deserved love dylan as I get older.

But it does seem like a make up reward/life time achievement. I imagine here on out the Nobel prize for literature will always feel like that.

The Nobel Prize has always been a lifetime achievement award generally, not "who had the best work in the last year?"
 

Alavard

Member
From Wikipedia:

Thus, the prize is now awarded both for lasting literary merit and for evidence of consistent idealism on some significant level. In recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Hence, the award is now arguably more political.

Given the nature of Dylan's career and his songs, this seems to fit pretty well to me. It should also be noted that he previously won a Pulitzer Prize special citation along the same lines as well.
 

Gallbaro

Banned
From Wikipedia:



Given the nature of Dylan's career and his songs, this seems to fit pretty well to me. It should also be noted that he previously won a Pulitzer Prize special citation along the same lines as well.

Cannot argue with his poetic ability though.
 

Heartfyre

Member
Bloodborne was robbed.

But in all seriousness, if song lyrics only got awarded by the Nobel Prize committee in 2016, video games will probably have to wait until the year 3016.
 
I'm a Literature BA, and I didn't know this guy's work was considered literature. Not saying it should or should not be. The whole situation is just weird. Usually when someone wins a Nobel he/she has been on the radar as a likely candidate for years. This just came out of nowhere.
If you have a BA in literature and can't distinguish epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry then uh, perhaps refresh the course.

This is a fitting prize for a poet. It is not a musical award.

Humanities need to step up!
 

Majine

Banned
“How can the life of such a man/ Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?/ To see him obviously framed/ Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed/ To live in a land/ Where justice is a game”

I'm fine with this.
 

Elven_Star

Member
If you have a BA in literature and can't distinguish epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry then uh, perhaps refresh the course.

This is a fitting prize for a poet. It is not a musical award.

Humanities need to step up!
I love how you ignored the "I'm not saying his work should or should not be considered literature" part.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I would say than when it comes to poetry, Jim Morrison would deserve a Nobel too. Maybe even before Dylan.
 

Jag

Member
Hurricane

Sadly just as relevant today as it was back in 1976

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed
 

Sean C

Member
Are we now going to open the doors to this particular prize for musicians? What's the point of this? Making it harder for authors to win?
The point is to recognize the best from literature, as Nobel wanted. The Prize has already gone to novelists, poets, short story writers, philosophers, historians, playwrights, and orators (and probably a few other disciplines). Each of those, when awarded the first time, expanded the scope of who had been recognized.

Incidentally, should movie scripts be included as well?
Movie scripts aren't fundamentally different from plays, so yes, there'd be no reason to exclude them.

However, given the nature of filmmaking, which tend to feature multiple screenwriters (often uncredited), being overseen by directors, etc., it would probably be very difficult for a screenwriter to put together the kind of reputation necessary. At a minimum, it would probably need to be a writer-director.

Sweden's own Ingmar Bergman would probably have been the most obvious candidate, but he's gone now.
 

bud23

Member
So whats next?

#JustinBieberNobelinLiterature2019?

First you wanna go to the left then you wanna turn right..... First you're up, then you're down and then between

So deep

Poetry man

I can see it happening now
 
Song writing has not been a "major part of literature" as far as I know. That's the whole point. This is unprecedented.
Let's ask the ancient greeks:
For the ancient Greeks, lyric poetry had a precise technical meaning: verse that was accompanied by a lyre, cithara, or barbitos. Because such works were typically sung, it was also known as melic poetry. The lyric or melic poet was distinguished from the writer of plays (although Athenian drama included choral odes, in lyric form), the writer of trochaic and iambic verses (which were recited), the writer of elegies (accompanied by the flute, rather than the lyre) and the writer of epic.[5]
It turns out it's a major part of literature and literally one of the first things you learn when studying literature.

In the words of Aristotle, you done goofed!
 

Gallbaro

Banned
So whats next?

#JustinBieberNobelinLiterature2019?

First you wanna go to the left then you wanna turn right..... First you're up, then you're down and then between

So deep

Poetry man

I can see it happening now

the sun ain't yellow it's chicken

giphy.gif
 

Elven_Star

Member
Let's ask the ancient greeks:

It turns out it's a major part of literature and literally one of the first things you learn when studying literature.

In the words of Aristotle, you done goofed!

You have created a twisted version of what I'm saying. I meet people like you on a daily basis. They are out to prove they know more about literature than the guy who has studied it academically. It's some kind of self-confidence thing.

Here's the thing: Bob Dylan has been known as a song writer throughout his life. It's the first time they have awarded a Nobel prize to a song writer. You want to call it lyric poetry? Fine. The question is why it wasn't recognized as such till now. What has changed?
 
Whats up with Murakami? I've not read any of his books but I know he is loved. Given the amount of responses here makes me think he has done something recent to be robbed?
 

Corto

Member
Song writing has not been a "major part of literature" as far as I know. That's the whole point. This is unprecedented.

Not to pile on you, but Medieval Songbooks and perhaps some even before that are great examples of literature in poem/lyrics form that perpetuate and preserve the traditions and culture of a society. Dylan will occupy a front row in every 20th century Songbook.
 

Kaladin

Member
One of my favorite obscure Dylan songs:

I've been a moonshiner,
For seventeen long years,
I've spent all my money,
On whiskey and beer,
I go to some hollow,
And sit at my still
And if whiskey dont kill me,
Then I dont know what will,

I go to some bar room,
And drink with my friends,
Where the women cant follow,
And see what I spend,
God bless them pretty women,
I wish they was mine,
Their breath is as sweet,
The dew on the vine,

Let me eat when I am hungry,
Let me drink when I am dry,
A dollar when I am hard up,
Religion when I die,
The whole world's a bottle,
And life's but a dram,
When the bottle gets empty,
It sure ain't worth a damn.
 

Elven_Star

Member
Not to pile on you, but Medieval Songbooks and perhaps some even before that are great examples of literature in poem/lyrics form that perpetuate and preserve the traditions and culture of a society. Dylan will occupy a front row in every 20th century Songbook.

Yes, I said in my first post that I'm not saying his work should not be considered literature. Don't know why people keep ignoring that.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Whats up with Murakami? I've not read any of his books but I know he is loved. Given the amount of responses here makes me think he has done something recent to be robbed?
He's good but I think he's yet to write his true masterpiece. Give it some time.
 

Kaladin

Member
I feel like if this is a new thing, if the Nobel Prize In Literature is going to songwriters, it should go to songwriters whose work transcends the music it's written for and is actually poetry and whose body of work had some significant impact on the world.

Bob Dylan certainly fits in that category.

That being said, Hank Williams should easily be awarded this down the line.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs

Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, “Death to all those who would whimper and cry”
And dropping a barbell he points to the sky
Saying, “The sun’s not yellow it’s chicken”

Little more to the line than that
 
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