UKC

Wow; but thoroughly deserved. Like Shakespeare, a lot of what he says doesn't make sense, it doesn't stand too close analysis; but you understand completely what he means.

(Mind you that doesn't change my opinion that the two gigs of his I went to were the two worst gigs I have ever been to in my entire life.)

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

At last, a piece of good news!

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

was just about to start a thread then noted then, well done Bob (isn't it about 50 years since he was first proposed ?)

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

When I read "Bobness" I thought it was about Bob Holness - Saxaphone Nobel Laureate

In reply to Hat Dude:

My first thought was Bob Monkhouse and my second thought was "Don't be daft they don't give out posthumous nobel prizes". It took until thought three to question whether he was really a worthy candidate.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Hmmm. Might put £50 on The Wurzels for next year.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Apparently Nigel Blackwell was the first choice, but he turned it down because the ceremony clashed with Tranmere's match against Solihull

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Dylan is effectively the Fonz but a bit more wordy.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


I'm a long-term fan - to the extent of having every studio album he's recorded - so I'm similarly delighted. I also spent around 30 years teaching English Literature, so I would have to take issue with you about Shakespeare not making sense though! Mind you, I also think Bob's complex imagery makes sense if you're prepared to study it sufficiently. I realise this is probably a minority view given some of the comments so far! Anyway, I'm now setting aside a week to play my way through his entire recorded output in chronological order.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I would be gratified if those who claim that Shakespeare doesn't make sense supplied a quotation that they did not understand.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
possibly my favourite Dylan lyric (the same was released not long after I separated from someone)

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early Spring, is livin' there, I hear
Say for me that I’m all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay

I see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off
Either I'm too sensitive or else I'm gettin' soft

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she’s passin’ back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time

Still waiting...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Seems to have got right up the nose of the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/13/a-world-that-gives-bob-dylan-a-n...

Awfully lowbrow apparently.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

So there's still hope for Leonard Cohen!

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Personally I think it a great decision, probably the first Nobel laureate that 99% of the public will ever have heard of or remember - without dumbing down, in my opinion.

Out of interest, who else, if anyone, in the popular music world do you think could also be considered for the prize. This is of course lyrics, I've always considered Leonard Cohen up there.

In reply to Gone for good:

Damn, you beat my post by a minute

In reply to Gone for good:


And who's Leonard Cohen??

In reply to Moley:

Bob Dylan is an exceptional song writer and musician. However, I prefer Leonards mournful singing style and his song writing for me is more evocative and personal. I was married to a Suzanne and played his songs many times during our 12 years together.

Now Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he'd spend a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors
Then until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky was open
Forsaken, only human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone......

Utterly brilliant.

In reply to Bob Kemp:

An embarrassing article from someone who needs to read Ricks on Dylan. I find it hard to believe anyone with such Blimpish attitudes has actually read much of De Lillo or Pynchon whose names he feels so free to bandy about. Hamlet, Sistine Chapel, Beethoven's late quartets, Blonde on Blonde. Or, in 20th century terms, Ulysses, Kandinsky's Composition VIII, Schoenberg's late quartets, Blonde on Blonde.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

It's textbook awards-time clickbait with a lovely hell-in-a-handcart Telegraph spin. Classic stuff really.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
You only need to read Dylan's autobiography to realise this is richly deserved. It's brilliant writing.

In reply to John2:

Julius Caesar:
Marullus:

'You bollox, you're stoned! You're worse than senseless things!'

What's that all about?

In reply to Gone for good:

I'd totally agree that Leonard Cohen's songs* are better poetry than Dylan's and frankly I prefer them as songs too but he's not really had the same influence as a songwriter as Bob, has he?

Anyhow, I'd add Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits to the "music as literature" list.


*Chelsea Hotel No. 2 would be my pick

In reply to Bob Kemp:


An added bonus!

In reply to John2:

I have wasted time
and now doth time waste me...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



Bit like David Bowie

Time may change me but you can't trace time.

In reply to Gone for good:

But does it make any sense?

Whereas... - has there ever been a better evocation of life in the first flush of a new love than New Morning

'The night passed away so quickly...
...it always does when you're with me'

or the joys of parenthood

'I can still see them playing with their pails in the sand
They run to the water their buckets to fill
I can still see the shells falling out of their hands
As they follow each other back up the hill.'

This isn't stringing words together that sound 'interesting', it's transferring thoughts and memories that are as vivid as anything we have actually experienced ourselves

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


>.It's a philosophical musing on the unpredictable tenure of our existence......I think.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I'm a long time admirer but this comment from Irvine Welsh raised a grin:

"I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies."

In reply to petenebo:

Tend to agree with Mr Welsh. This award is just misconceived and anyway I'd prefer that Ozzy was recognised instead

"Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel and love to me is so unreal"

Genius

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me...

Richard wasted time by not taking his opportunity to be a better king. His failure to do so resulted in him being deposed by Bolingbroke and imprisoned in Pomfret Castle. Time now wastes him (in the sense of steadily wear out) by slowly destroying him mentally since, in his isolation, he is intensely aware of each minute as it drags by. The soliloquy continues in a brilliantly sustained comparison of himself to a clock.

In reply to Hat Dude:

>Bob Holness - Saxaphone Nobel Laureate

I like your work.

In reply to petenebo:

Agreed. It should have gone to Neil Young.