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So well deserved. Congratulations Robert Zimmerman!
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That's what the prize is for, people whose writing is not just of a high calibre, but changes the world, reflects certain values, and makes an impact. He deserves it. Now, by contrast, the UN is investing Wonder Woman as their ambassador for empowerment of girls and women, and there'll be a ceremony. That's a tough one to fathom. She won't be attending the ceremony in person .....
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Way back in the early 1960s when I first heard Dylan, I was so put off by the voice (nails on blackboard) and crude accompaniment (random harmonica doodles) that I never got around to considering the words. I simply filed him, along with most rock and roll, in the deepest circle of musical hell -- a place I never wanted to go. Ever since, the notion has seeped into my perhaps prematurely closed mind that the man has done significant work. The Nobel is the clearest expression of that cultural respect. Is it significant that the respect comes from a literary rather than musical quarter? Perhaps I've simply filed Dylan in the wrong drawer. I think there's an album of Judy Collins singing Dylan songs. Perhaps I should see if I can find them tolerable when sung by a competent vocalist. Does the fairly modest notice in this (musical) forum suggest that Dylan's true metier is essentially nonmusical? Dylan is first and foremost a poet, whose material is put to music in a genre he was passionate about, namely folk-singing. And originally he had political urgency as motivation too, which became a tide. But we need to remember that music at its most basic origin is people creating with what they have, where and when they have it. We can't treat the symphonic tradition as the only valid pinnacle, because that would result in an elitist world where the vast majority of talent and creativity would go unexpressed. Very often there's a subculture of music commentators to whom any kind of actual creativity in the field isn't even on the radar. That's one reason why Frank DeWald's music notes are so good he knows the structure and evolution of the material. Yes sometime the single balladier can become the clichéd product of a cynical music industry, but that's where all music began. Plus, the sung lyric nails down message and direction rather than as just Pied Piper emotion. His gravelly delivery is part of the idea that music is for people, all people, and can be used to express creativity and lend wings to what needs expressing. And in Dylan's case, he didn't start out just writing about the welter of adolescent sexual emotions and romantic projections, as so many do and which is so easily exploited by the industry (all youth have hormones and desires), but he affected the stance of the prophet, a more mature base and legacy.
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One of Robert's best: https://youtu.be/mYajHZ4QUVM "He not busy being born is busy dying" What a bloody great line! "Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child’s balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn That he not busy being born is busy dying Temptation’s page flies out the door You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar You feel to moan but unlike before You discover that you’d just be one more Person crying So don’t fear if you hear A foreign sound to your ear It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing As some warn victory, some downfall Private reasons great or small Can be seen in the eyes of those that call To make all that should be killed to crawl While others say don’t hate nothing at all Except hatred Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It’s easy to see without looking too far That not much is really sacred While preachers preach of evil fates Teachers teach that knowledge waits Can lead to hundred-dollar plates Goodness hides behind its gates But even the president of the United States Sometimes must have to stand naked An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it Advertising signs they con You into thinking you’re the one That can do what’s never been done That can win what’s never been won Meantime life outside goes on All around you You lose yourself, you reappear You suddenly find you got nothing to fear Alone you stand with nobody near When a trembling distant voice, unclear Startles your sleeping ears to hear That somebody thinks they really found you A question in your nerves is lit Yet you know there is no answer fit To satisfy, insure you not to quit To keep it in your mind and not forget That it is not he or she or them or it That you belong to Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to be Nothing more than something they invest in While some on principles baptized To strict party platform ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And then say God bless him While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society’s pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he’s in But I mean no harm nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him Old lady judges watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn’t talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer’s pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death’s honesty Won’t fall upon them naturally Life sometimes must get lonely My eyes collide head-on with stuffed Graveyards, false gods, I scuff At pettiness which plays so rough Walk upside-down inside handcuffs Kick my legs to crash it off Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me? And if my thought-dreams could be seen They’d probably put my head in a guillotine But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only" Copyright©Warner Bros.. That's in the realm of Yeats.
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I remember reading a piece years ago by someone who had nominated Dylan for the Nobel Prize. He pointed to the early song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." He said that the listener inherently knows that the protagonist is black, yet Dylan never says so in the lyric, and that this was only one example of the skill that Dylan had with lyrics even as early as 1963. Probably not available outside UK (and licensing rules were tightened up recently) but I find there's a 30 minute BBC radio documentary on that song, with many interviews with people who witnessed the original events here: Joan Baez too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s77wp
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I was into pop music and glam rock back then, and some 60s soul and then film music. I never "got" dylan. He was for my older brother and the older lad next door. The sixth formers in oxford bags and maxi coats and long hair. You had to be 18 and understand the anti vietnam msg and rebellion. Dylan was an album artist and i only had exposure to chart singles. Thats the way it was. It was only later - after i was older and got to see Pat Garrett - that i began to understand the talent of Dylan. The rawness and simplicity of folk music. And then eventually i was old enough to understand the words. People dont instantly associate singing with poetry but as William shows us there, poetry to music is just the medium Dylan uses. Well deserved if not just for his talent but for his effect and contribution to that period when he was most vital.
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Posted: |
Oct 15, 2016 - 12:01 PM
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By: |
OnyaBirri
(Member)
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Dylan deserves the prize for this song alone: Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ? We sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there's nothing really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover so entwined And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind. In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D-train We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane Louise she's all right she's just near She's delicate and seems like the mirror But she just makes it all too concise and too clear That Johanna's not here The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place. Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously And when bringing her name up He speaks of a farewell kiss to me He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall Oh, how can I explain ? It's so hard to get on And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn. Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles See the primitive wallflower frieze When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze I can't find my knees." Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel. The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him." But like Louise always says "Ya can't look at much, can ya man." As she, herself prepares for him And Madonna, she still has not showed We see this empty cage now corrode Where her cape of the stage once had flowed The fiddler, he now steps to the road He writes everything's been returned which was owed On the back of the fish truck that loads While my conscience explodes The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.
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They really don't get it! Dylan Nobel snub 'impolite and arrogant' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37740379 Do they expect the man (or his persona the prophet) who called churches and political parties 'social clubs in drag disguise' to happily conform to their imposed (no matter how well intentioned) ritual? Different league.
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Certainly Joan, but Bobbie isn't you or I ... his work of art extends beyond just the songs themselves, and he has to live the character. And he didn't solicit it. Back in 2007 the writer Doris Lessing got home from a trip to Tescos or the like, and there were reporters on her doorstep to tell her the news. See the result: https://youtu.be/vuBODHFBZ8k https://youtu.be/3mA-Tr6cJa0 She did accept it, but she knew the score. I mean, you award the prize, that's it. The theatre associated is maybe just a wee bit self-obsessed.
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Joan, this Newsnight vid might explain her reluctance, the Nobel representatives early on visited her to tell her she'd never get it! https://youtu.be/BPv6Gbof4BM
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