John, you surprise me about the lines you question:

How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?

It doesn't take much familiarity with the Bible to see a connection to the story of Noah and the Ark, in which Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the land. The first time it returned because it had nowhere to land. The second time it returned with an olive branch in its mouth. The third time it did not return. The dove in that story seems pretty clearly connected to the hope for a better future, with the ability to sleep in the sand representing both peace and safety. I think the lines are evocative even for someone who does not know the biblical story, but the allusion adds a lot of depth. It is the ability of Dylan to link to symbolic levels and reference other literature that lifts his lyrics way above most popular song lyrics (and I say that as someone who values lyrics of many current songwriters).

Susan

I think in choosing Blowingin the Wind you have a fairly easy target too, John. It may be possibly his most famous song but it's a long way from being his best. It does have duff lines I agree. It clunks badly and I always skip it.

I can never take 'how many ears must one man have/before he can hear people cry' too seriously.

The white dove never bothered me (for reasons Susan pointed out). But lines like this one did. Some other skirt the edge for me, like 'Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly / Before they're forever banned?.'

As far as Bruce Springsteen, I think he's both underrated and overrated depending on what people seem to want him for. He writes heartbreaking stuff sometimes. The Tom Joad album is a short story collection. Here's Straight Time:

Got out of prison back in '86. I found a wife
Walked the clean and narrow path
Just tryin' to stay out and stay alive
Got a job at the rendering plant, it ain't gonna make me rich
In the darkness before dinner comes
Sometimes I can feel the itch
I got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
I'm sick of doin' straight time

My uncle's at the evenin' table, makes his living runnin' hot cars
Slips me a hundred dollar bill, says
"Charlie you best remember who your friends are."
Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
I ain't makin' straight time

Eight years in and it feels like you're gonna die
But you get used to anything
Sooner or later it just becomes your life

Kitchen floor in the evening, tossin' my little babies high
Mary's smiling but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye
Seems you can't get any more than half free
I step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me
Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line
I'm sick of doin' straight time

In the basement, huntin' gun and a hacksaw
Sip a beer and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor

Come home late that evening, can't get the smell from my hands
Lay my head down on the pillow
And go driftin' off into foreign lands

Dylan played "Blowin' in the Wind" last night in Las Vegas and did not say a word about his new Laureate status. (I think this song and "Like a Rolling Stone" are the two best known ones and the two that appear on setlists most often.) However, he has said in the past that he had to move beyond "finger-pointing songs"--as he derisively described his early "protest" material (like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Only a Pawn in the Game," the Medgar Evers song referenced by James, which I like much better than James does)--in order to get to what came later: the wild mid 60s high-point, the devastating Blood on the Tracks, the born-again phase, the great songs scattered throughout the career, and the startling late-career rejuvenation.

It might be fun for some of us to do a Good-Dylan and Bad-Dylan thread. Like Mark says, it get a lot better than "Blowin'". It gets a lot worse, too.

And Quincy, I couldn't agree more. I leaned what satire was from the Dead Kennedy's. 'Kill the Poor' is basically Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' in a loud three minute burst.

Poets have held differing opinions on Bob Dylan for awhile now. In Ezra Pound: The Voice of Silence, Alan Levy wrote that when Allen Ginsberg and his entourage visited Italy during the late ‘60s, they were “horrified” to learn that Pound had never heard of Dylan. In the words of Olga Rudge, Ginsberg “covered that gap in Ezra’s education by sending him several Dylan records, which Ezra didn’t enjoy at all.” Ironically, the first time I ever heard of Pound was through "Desolation Row."

Overrated and underrated. Yeah, I get that. Springsteen's The River I think is overdone. And I still like it. And the 80's were the 80's.

*I listened to it again and this always gets to me (about a poor couple married in their teens): I act like I don't remember and Mary acts like she don't care. And: There's a dream alive that don't come true or is it something worse...

I unashamedly love good rock lyrics. I tingle when I hear them. The whole 'do they work on the page' is irrelevant.

Having said that, here's one more. On the page. Nick Cave's 'the Curse of Milhaven': surely the best song about a little girl serial killer ever written.


I live in a town called Millhaven
And it's small and it's mean and it's cold
But if you come around just as the sun goes down
You can watch the whole town turn to gold
It's around about then that I used to go a-roaming
Singing La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all gotta die
My name is Loretta but I prefer Lottie
I'm closing in on my fifteenth year
And if you think you have seen a pair of eyes more green
Then you sure didn't see them around here
My hair is yellow and I'm always a-combing
La la la la La la la lie
Mama often told me we all got to die
You must have heard about The Curse Of Millhaven
How last Christmas Bill Blake's little boy didn't come home
They found him next week in One Mile Creek
His head bashed in and his pockets full of stones
Well, just imagine all the wailing and moaning
La la la la La la la lie
Even little Billy Blake's boy, he had to die
Then Professor O'Rye from Millhaven High
Found nailed to his door his prize-winning terrier
Then next day the old fool brought little Biko to school
And we all had to watch as he buried her
His eulogy to Biko had all the tears a-flowing
La la la la La la la lie
Even God's little creatures, they have to die
Our little town fell into a state of shock
A lot of people were saying things that made little sense
Then the next thing you know the head of Handyman Joe
Was found in the fountain of the Mayor's residence
Foul play can really get a small town going
La la la la La la la lie
Even God's children all have to die
Then, in a cruel twist of fate, old Mrs Colgate
Was stabbed but the job was not complete
The last thing she said before the cops pronounced her dead
Was, "My killer is Loretta and she lives across the street!"
Twenty cops burst through my door without even phoning
La la la la La la la lie
The young ones, the old ones, they all gotta die
Yes, it is I, Lottie. The Curse Of Millhaven
I've struck horror in the heart of this town
Like my eyes ain't green and my hair ain't yellow
It's more like the other way around
I gotta pretty little mouth underneath all the foaming
La la la la La la la lie
Sooner or later we all gotta die
Since I was no bigger than a weavil they've been saying I was evil
That if "bad" was a boot that I'd fit it
That I'm a wicked young lady, but I've been trying hard lately
O fuck it! I'm a monster! I admit it!
It makes me so mad my blood really starts a-going
La la la la La la la lie
Mama always told me that we all gotta die
Yeah, I drowned the Blakey kid, stabbed Mrs. Colgate, I admit
Did the handyman with his circular saw in his garden shed
But I never crucified little Biko, that was two junior high school psychos
Stinky Bohoon and his friend with the pumpkin-sized head
I'll sing to the lot, now you got me going
La la la la La la la lie
All God's children have all gotta die
There were all the others, all our sisters and brothers
You assumed were accidents, best forgotten
Recall the children who broke through the ice on Lake Tahoo?
Everyone assumed the "Warning" signs had followed them to the bottom
Well, they're underneath the house where I do quite a bit of stowing
La la la la La la la lie
Even twenty little children, they had to die
And the fire of '91 that razed the Bella Vista slum
There was the biggest shit-fight this country's ever seen
Insurance companies ruined, land lords getting sued
All cause of wee girl with a can of gasoline
Those flames really roared when the wind started blowing
La la la la La la la lie
Rich man, poor man, all got to die
Well I confessed to all these crimes and they put me on trial
I was laughing when they took me away
Off to the asylum in an old black Mariah
It ain't home, but you know, it's fucking better than jail
It ain't such bad old place to have a home in
La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all gotta die
Now I got shrinks that will not rest with their endless Rorschach tests
I keep telling them they're out to get me
They ask me if I feel remorse and I answer, "Why of course!
There is so much more I could have done if they'd let me!"
So it's Rorschach and Prozac and everything is groovy
Singing La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all have to die
La la la la La la la lie
I'm happy as a lark and everything is fine
Singing La la la la La la la lie
Yeah, everything is groovy and everything is fine
Singing La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they gotta die

Bedtime now...:)

I have nothing new to add to this thread other than to say that I think Dylan's win is well deserved. I can think of few singer-songwriter-poets who have had a more wide-ranging influence. Leonard Cohen is the only one who comes close, and I suspect many who question Dylan's win wouldn't question a Cohen win quite so much...

Despite having a background in music and generally being a music collector and audiophile, I've never owned anything by Dylan (excluding covers, of course), yet there is no question in my mind that he deserves the top prize for literature, however broadly defined.