[Tim Murphy]

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...ylan-nobel-win

Very high spirited piece by Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, that ends with lots of links.

My parents were very junior English professors at the Hibbing Community College. They rented an apartment above the Zimmerman Store, and they paid the boy ten cents an hour to push my stroller. No wonder I turned to poetry! He became famous when I was twelve, and I loved and memorized his songs. This prize delights me even more than VS Naipaul, who was honored right after 9/11 in a rare nod to a conservative.

Claudia, an awful lot of Burns' appeal depends on the ancient airs he set his lyrics to. I teach Burns in high school every January 25, and I am more influenced by him than any other poet.

[Roger Slater]

The prize spurred me to upload a recording to YouTube of Dylan's performance of Mr Tamourine Man at Wolftrap in 1997. The audio quality isn't very good (and there's 3 seconds of pure static in the opening 15 seconds or so) but it's a truly great performance. He changes up the melody and the tone is very different from his studio recording. It ends with a long guitar solo. Anyway, I love it so I figured I'd share it now. HERE

[Max Goodman]

Now, if next year Richard Wilbur is honored, a lot of people are going to feel Springsteen was robbed.

[Roger Slater]

Here's an opinion from Alicia Stallings.

[Catherine Chandler]

Right on, Alicia! Thanks for the link, Roger.

[John Whitworth]

I don't see how Dylan's lyrics will pass as literature without the music. There isn't a Nobel prize for music is there?

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

What do the third and fourth lines mean, if anything? I thnk Dylan is well short of the Beatles in this line. Or Simon and Garfunkel. Or Cole Porter. Or even Leonard Cohen. I don't think I know anything by Bruce Springsteen. Or do I?

About half the Nobel prizes for literature are for gluggers. Tagore, for God's sake. And nothing for Hardy or Larkin or Auden.

[Richard Meyer]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

I don't see how Dylan's lyrics will pass as literature without the music. There isn't a Nobel prize for music is there?

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

What do the third and fourth lines mean, if anything?

You may be correct in your first comment, John. I think as concerns popular music, the lyrics and the musical accompaniment are contingent on each other.

I'm puzzled, however, by your question What do the third and fourth lines mean, if anything? I wish I had a dollar for every time you've mentioned on these boards that the sound of a poem is by far the most important thing and that "meaning" is of little or no consequence. If I recall correctly, Wallace Stevens is your favorite American poet, and the "meaning" of his poems is often a puzzle to many readers. Stevens himself said he didn't know what some of his poems meant.

Richard

[Tim Murphy]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...-bob-dylan.php
Scott Johnson has an affectionate post at Powerline with links to some of his favorite covers, all singers better than Dylan. Odetta, Joan Baez, The Byrds joined live by the author in Tambourine Man, which I think is the closest he ever got to great poetry. It's an acid trip, and I used to listen to it tripping. We wouldn't have "Lucy in the Sky" without it.

[John Whitworth]

But Dylan means them to mean something. He is writing political stuff. The case of Stevens (no Nobel there either) is a special one. Dylan's lines are duff.

[Andrew Szilvasy]

Yeah, I think Stallings' response is the perfect one for this.

I have my qualms about it being Dylan (not lyricists in general), but that's a persuasive a case as can be made for him.