Bob Dylan.

[Togo]

Has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. How good is that? I remember as a young teenager way back in the early sixties being ridiculed by my elders and betters for being so taken with the lyrics and message that Dylan was putting out. Seems that I, and my contemporaries, were right.

[ummmm]

I love him :-)

[Bathsheba]

Here's hoping Barry Gibb gets it next year,

Baths
x x x

[Togo]

Note the pseud intellects once again furiously signalling their own lofty yearnings. I would wager that not one of the gainsayers have read, or even heard of, most of the recent winners of the Nobel prize for Literature. Herta Muller, Mario Vargas Llosa, Thomas Transtromer, Mo Yan, Alice Munro, Patrick Modiana, Svetlana Alexiavich..... me neither. Although I do recall the last one being a journalist from Belarus, riveting stuff no doubt. But I can assure you that they have heard of and know some of Dylan's work. Dylan will be quoted and mimicked long after the previous non entities have even been googled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXWM84rUV-Q

[Mamyalynne]

To me lyrics can be magic with words just as literature in book form can, so a good choice really.

[Togo]

PS. I hope that Dylan turns them down and states that he could not accept such an award from the gains made by an explosives and arms magnate. Big middle finger to em, a la Sartre.

[tamborine]

Few can play guitar, harmonica & sing together......him & me ;)

[tamborine]

Few can play guitar, harmonica & sing together......him & me ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYF8Y47qZQY

[agchristie]

Togo > I would wager that not one of the gainsayers have read, or even heard of, most of the recent winners of the Nobel prize for Literature. Herta Muller, Mario Vargas Llosa, Thomas Transtromer, Mo Yan, Alice Munro, Patrick Modiana, Svetlana Alexiavich..... me neither. Although I do recall the last one being a journalist from Belarus, riveting stuff no doubt.

Not only have I heard and read Alexievich I have actually met her at the Hay Festival where she signed her recent work 'Second Hand Time'. I am also familiar with her work regarding Chernobyl.

She is certainly not just a 'journalist from Belarus' but an extremely accomplished author whose work was fully meritorious of winning the 2015 Prize.

So,I am a gainsayer who has proved you wrong.

[Togo]

Give yourself a pat on the back ag. Was Steven Fry there? He usually is.

[agchristie]

^ Indeed he was.

[Togo]

Haha knew it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_-VxMXEcYI

[andy-hughes]

I think the argument about Dylan's award polarises around the definition if 'literature'.

As far as I am concerned, all lyrics are literature - they are written down first before they become songs.

If Leonard Cohen writes Suzanne or Hallelujah, do they cease to be poems because he set them to music and recorded them?

I would suggest that they do not. One art form does not cease to exist because it is co-opted into another art form. A drawing is not invalidated because the artist makes a painting from it.

So in my view, Mr Dylan is a poet as well as a musician - all songwriters who write their lyrics and their music are poets - he just happens to have been doing it better, longer, than just about anyone else, and as such, is deserving of this award.

[melv16]

Apart from Stephen Sondheim, I think he's our greatest ever living lyricist/songwriter.