U.S. musician Bob Dylan performs during on day 2 of The Hop Festival in Paddock Wood, Kent on June 30th 2012.
Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel Prize in literature
Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel Prize in literature
STOCKHOLM (AP) — American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, a stunning announcement that for the first time bestowed the prestigious award on a musician for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
Reporters and others gathered at the Swedish Academy's headquarters in Stockholm's Old Town reacted with a loud cheer as his name was read out.
Dylan, 75, is arguably the most iconic poet-musician of his generation. 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 impact on popular culture was immense.
But although he had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, many experts had ruled him out, thinking the academy wouldn't extend its more than a century-old award to the world of music.
They were wrong. The academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, said while Dylan performs his poetry in the form of songs, that's no different from the ancient Greeks, whose works were often performed to music.
"Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear," she said. "But it's perfectly fine to read his works as poetry."
Dylan is the first American winner of the Nobel literature prize since Toni Morrison in 1993.
Born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan grew up in a Jewish middle-class family.
By his early 20s, he had taken the folk music world by storm. From that time on, he would constantly reinvent himself — often enraging followers in the process — but then later winning them back and adding new admirers. His career was such a complicated pastiche of elusive, ever-changing styles that it took six actors to portray him in the 2007 movie based on his life, "I'm Not There."
Although generally described as a rock musician, Dylan has been influenced by numerous musical styles, including country, gospel, blues, folk, pop, and rhythm and blues. Pursuing them all, sometimes separately and other times simultaneously, he remains a towering influence over music and popular culture.
He won an Academy Award in 2001 for the song "Things Have Changed" and received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1991. In 2008, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to music and American culture.
The literature award was the last of this year's Nobel Prizes to be announced. The six awards will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
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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
Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.
Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
Ahh you've gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you're gonna have to get used to it
You say you never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
A complete unknown, like a rolling stone
Ah you never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To have on your own, with no direction home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
Ahh princess on a steeple and all the pretty people
They're all drinking, thinking that they've got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel, ah how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
Perfect. IMO he has been the poet laureate of more than one generation, and most deserving of this recognition.
Cool story and good for Bob.
Great news.
another view
Here's Why Bob Dylan Won the Nobel Prize in Literature Today
At the New Republic yesterday, Alex Shepard suggested that this might be the year for Don DeLillo to win the Nobel Prize in Literature:
Call me cynical, but this is the lens through which I judge Bob Dylan's Nobel win. The Academy did indeed feel like their boycott of American literature was starting to look silly, but they still didn't want to award a prize to an actual American writer. So they chose Dylan. No matter what you think of his work, I view this as practically the ultimate snub of American novelists. You think Pynchon and DeLillo and Roth and Oates are great writers? Hah! They're not even up to the standards of a good pop singer.
And now they can spend another two decades ignoring American writers.
Literature, like any art form, is difficult to rate, especially where a Nobel award is concerned. We know bad literature when we read it, and we pretty much know good. The "best" is, at best, subjective.
I believe that all the names you mentioned are great writers. The best? Who know, John...
Dylan is a poet. Poetry falls into literature. I cannot prove this, but i can say with confidence that there are maybe 4 music artists from the 60s and 70s who will be remembered 500 years from now.
Dylan is one of them.
He deserves the Nobel for his work.
But he will not go to Stockholm to receive it. It's like pulling a Marlon Brando sending a proxy to receive his Oscar. At least Hemingway had an excuse.