Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature
On October 16, 2016, the Swedish Academy accepted the recommendation of the Nobel Committee on Literature and awarded Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in literature. They indicated that he received this great honor
“…for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
The award triggered diverse reactions.
Some said, “It’s about time!” The Canadian poet singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, when asked his opinion of the decision, said, “It’s like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.”
Others were appalled. Jason Pinter, author of the book The Fury, among others, responded, “If Bob Dylan can win the Nobel Prize for literature, then I think Stephen King should get elected to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.”
The award raises questions about the boundaries of literature. Can anything beyond a book or short story be literature? Can scripts for plays be literature? How about Shakespeare’s plays? Is poetry literature? How about poetry put to music?
The Nobel Prize committee obviously viewed poetic expressions as literature. It is my opinion that all of these outlets can potentially be literature. Many scripts for plays could not classify as literature. There are great poems, and there are horrid poems that could not possibly be called literature, or at least great literature. There can be poetry in song, but poetry is not required for song lyrics. I think if a poet during my time of life wanted to reach a broad audience and try to make a living with art, that poet would have to couch the poetry in song. Otherwise, the poet is relegated to obscurity.
Putting poetry to song requires musical and performance talent. This requirement adds new burden to presenting great poetry. The above viewpoint of Pinter inherently denies that poetry in song can be literature. He is ignoring a long-standing tradition that goes back as least as far as the Psalms of David. My guess is that Pinter has not closely examined the art of Bob Dylan, not like, say, Michael Gray has.
In a more than 900-page book called Song and Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan, Michael Gray, a free-lance writer from the U.K., compares Dylan’s poetic lyrics with famous poetry addressing the same topics. Here is the chorus of the 1789 song “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
“My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a chasin’ a deer;
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe;
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.”
Here is the first chorus from Dylan’s song “Highlands”, available on the 1998 Columbia release Time Out of Mind.
“My heart’s in the Highlands, gentle and fair
Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air
Bluebells blazing where the Aberdeen waters flow
Well, my heart’s in the Highlands
I‘m gonna go there when I feel good enough to go.”
The consistent rhythm in the lines is preserved by Dylan’s phrasing. Dylan writes a different set of lyrics for each of the choruses in his song, “Highlands”.
For his Nobel presentation, which he did not attend due conflicts, Dylan had Patti Smith sing his song “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”. I first heard this song as a senior in high school in Kingsville, TX. A student teacher in my math class, who was older than typical students, was finishing his degree at what was then Texas A&I, but is now Texas A&M Kingsville. He knew I played guitar and was focused on country and rock and roll. He invited me to his room at the college, where, to my surprise, he gave me Joan Baez’s first album and Bob Dylan’s second album, “Freewheelin’.” He told me that these gifts represented the future of music. I had never heard of them.
I worked through junior high and high school, and music was one of my priorities. I always had as good a stereo as I could afford, and never a bad one. At the time I had a record player and speakers housed within a wood cabinet. It provided good sound for these new records.
I first heard Joan Baez’s angelic voice singing traditional folk ballads. That record made me feel like I was listening to sounds from another dimension.
When I put on Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album, I realized that I had never heard anything close to his songs or his singing. It is hard to imagine now that album’s impact on me and my thinking, with “Blowin” in the Wind”, “Masters of War”, and others. When I got to “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” I was stunned.
The media called these protest songs. To me, they are laments that the morality of this world is not living up to a higher moral standard, a timeless commentary on the human condition.
The poet Alen Ginsburg, in the documentary No Direction Home, recounts that when he first heard “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” he wept, because he realized that the poetic torch had been passed to Bob Dylan from the “Beat Poets.”
To better appreciate this song that Dylan chose for the Nobel audience, let’s examine its structure. In each verse, a question is posed to Dylan, which he then answers. The answers add up to a fall from grace conveyed in a variety of ways and settings.
The first question, in the first verse, is
“Oh where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh where have you been, my darling young one?”
This and the following questions are addressed to the “blue-eyed son”. Dylan has blue eyes, and it appears that he is being personally questioned, as evidenced by his use of “I” in his responses. .
He answers:
“I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.”
I will not provide the other answers. It is better if you experience them as they unfold in the song. To return to the structure, the second question is
“Oh what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
The third is
“And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?”
The fourth is
“ And who did you meet, my blue eyed son?”
The final question is
“Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?”
This final question contains a “what are you going to do about it?” type of expectation.
Who is this questioner? He is calling Dylan his son, and by the nature of the questions it appears to me that the questioner is Dylan’s father. But the setting brings Dylan’s spiritual father more to my mind that any human father. It seems that God is asking Dylan what he is going to do about the disturbing images relayed in his answers. One of these images is of guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children – an unthinkable thought at the time, but now a common reality. It also seems that the rain that is going to fall is God’s judgement.
Dylan’s answer in the final stanza is one of the most affecting verses ever to appear in song.
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
The spiritual aspect is emphasized by Dylan’s concern for reaching “souls”, reflecting from the mountain, and standing on the ocean Throughout the writing, each of his images has power. When taken as a whole, they are overwhelming.
Please listen to the original version, just Dylan and his guitar, but also be sure and listen to a powerful version in a live television broadcast from 1976 in Fort Collins, CO during the second leg of his Rolling Thunder Review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFii72ioEwM
How do you explain the impact of great writing? All I can say is that I was affected deeply by the songs on the Freewheelin’ album, and still am. My “feelings” don’t make his work literature, but to my way of thinking his writing in this song and others (not all) rise to the level of literature.
Dylan was 21 years old when he wrote the Freewheelin’ songs. At 80 years old he is still creating “literature conveyed through song” deserving of attention. Perhaps I will visit some of his later work at another time.
A Nobel Lecture is requested of all awardees. For those interested, here is the link to Bob Dylan’s. It is unlike any acceptance lecture you have ever heard, but it is brilliant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zf04vnVPfM
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