BOB Dylan, arguably the USA’s greatest ever singer-songwriter, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, recognising his unique place in musical and cultural history over five decades.

It’s fair to say that there was a bit of a shock when his name was announced yesterday. Over the last few years, however, Dylan’s name has constantly been mentioned as the Swedish Academy prepared to name the winner of the world’s greatest literary award.

BUT ISN’T HE JUST A SINGER-SONGWRITER?

THAT’S a bit like saying that Luciana Pavarotti could warble a bit. Dylan’s greatest hits down the decades have always been known for the power of the lyrics, and his words are frequently compared to the very best of modern poetry.

When Dylan started performing in the early 1960s, singer songwriters were a relatively recent phenomenon, with Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison two great early examples. But it was from folk singer Woody Guthrie that Dylan drew his direct inspiration, and suffice to say that the greatest of all country and western musicians, Johnny Cash, recognised that Dylan was an authentic voice of the people and went out of his way to assist and promote Dylan.

His contribution to American culture cannot be underestimated. He gave a voice to the 1960s counterculture, in songs like The Times They Are A-Changing and Blowin’ In The Wind, and then went on to chart the changes in American society as well as his own personal development – including religion, for having been born Jewish he embraced Christianity – in songs that were at once lyrical and meaningful, though the man himself never claimed to be a spokesman for any generation.

His journey from folk singer to major rock artist in the mid-1960s was in itself transformational for the music scene across the world, and arguably every other songwriter since Dylan has walked in his shadow and been influenced by him. His brilliant Subterranean Homesick Blues, released in 1965 is credited with inspiring rap and hip-hop musicians – everyone knows the accompanying video with Dylan working his way through cue cards, which has become one of the most imitated and parodied videos of all time.

COME ON, NOBODY UNDER THE AGE OF, SAY, 30 REALLY KNOWS ABOUT HIM

NOT true. Any serious student or lover of modern music knows the place that Dylan occupies in cultural history, and perhaps the greatest of all his attributes is that constantly re-invents himself, sometimes to the mystification of his fans.

In 2006, he released the powerful album Modern Times which went straight to the top of the American charts and won him a new following. He followed that up with the sublime Together Through Life in 2009 and that went to the top of the British charts, a full 39 years after he had previously been number one in the UK with the album New Morning.

President Barack Obama made sure that all of America should realise their debt to Dylan by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 to add to the Pulitzer Prize won in 2008. His latest album, Fallen Angels, is a tribute to great songwriters of the past such as Sammy Cahn and Johnny Mercer. Dylan openly said he brought out the album and previous versions of Frank Sinatra hits to bring lost glories of American songwriting into the light.

WHAT DISTINGUISHES HIS LYRICS?

POSSIBLY the best example of why Dylan is different and has made a difference is the song Like a Rolling Stone. Prior to the release of his album Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, song lyrics tended not to be confrontational, though The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had introduced an edge in their words.

Dylan himself says that the song changed his life and it certainly changed the way many songwriters composed their lyrics. From its angry opening:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?

... to its haunting refrain ...

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone

Dylan put down on vinyl arguably the most confrontational lyrics of the age. Or take the words of Blowin’ in the Wind…

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 cannonballs fly

Before they’re forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Or Mr Tambourine Man, Chimes of Freedom, Just Like a Woman, Shelter From The Storm, and perhaps above all, The Times they are a-Changin’

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway

Don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There’s a battle outside

And it is ragin’

It’ll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin’

These were all new, all uniquely Dylan, and those were just the early part of his career. He went on to write songs that were epic and intimate, and contained great poetic themes, too.

SO IS HE NOW CLASSED WITH HEMINGWAY, TS ELIOT, and STEINBECK?

SOME would say the honour for Dylan is long overdue.

None of the many other great singer songwriters from across the Pond have had the influence Dylan has had, and no one has ever written so many songs that are at once musical, and yet are also literature.


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