Woo-hoo! Nobel Prize for Literature!

Who would have thought it? Bob Dylan!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2016/oct/13/nobel-prize-in-literature-2016-liveblog

Best news of the day.

What a dumb, embarrassing call. Lame pandering, and insulting to both Dylan's genius and actual literature.

Wow let's do a whole Bob thread!

Poor Phillip Roth.

I'm so unhip, I thought they were talking about Dylan Thomas.

I was deeply moved when I learned that Dylan had won the Nobel. Over the years scores of artists have taken Bob Dylan's songs and lyrics unto their own hearts. Roberta Flack's cover of Dylan's "Just Like A Woman:"

If you read the lyrics to "Just Like a Woman" on the page they are laughably bad. They are song lyrics, not literature. They only reveal their power when they are sung.

dianaid said:

Poor Phillip Roth.

Bob Dylan and Philip Roth Were Frat Brothers?

(Well, maybe. Kind of.)

Remember this? Dylan's brush with New Jersey fame.

New Jersey Homeowner Calls Cops on Bob Dylan

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/jersey-homeowner-calls-cops-bob-dylan/story?id=8331830

DaveSchmidt said:

I'm so unhip, I thought they were talking about Dylan Thomas.

The man ain't got no "cultchah".

This is great poetry:

THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This is not:

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl

DaveSchmidt said:

I'm so unhip, I thought they were talking about Dylan Thomas.

He took the name Dylan from the writer. Rumor around here when I was college age was that he bought the

song "Blowing in the wind" from a Senior at Columbia High

Real name Bob Zimmerman. Hails from Minnesota

author said:

DaveSchmidt said:

I'm so unhip, I thought they were talking about Dylan Thomas.

He took the name Dylan from the writer. Rumor around here when I was college age was that he bought the

song "Blowing in the wind" from a Senior at Columbia High

Real name Bob Zimmerman. Hails from Minnesota

Thanks, author. I was alluding, as nohero noted, to an old Simon and Garfunkel ditty. If you're not familiar with it, I think you might enjoy it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOvs3rCFI2A&sns=em

author said:

Rumor around here when I was college age was that he bought the

song "Blowing in the wind" from a Senior at Columbia High

And any more details to that rumor?

(I thought a Columbia High was what listeners were getting while staring at the label on his LPs.)

It was Millburn, supposedly, and it isn't true.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/blowin.asp

imonlysleeping said:

It was Millburn, supposedly, and it isn't true.

Ah, thanks. Some times never change. As Wikipedia put it, "Wyatt finally explained his deception to New Times magazine in 1974. He credited his initial lie to panic that he wasn't pulling his weight as a songwriter in the school's male folk group, the Millburnaires."

author said:

DaveSchmidt said:

I'm so unhip, I thought they were talking about Dylan Thomas.

He took the name Dylan from the writer. Rumor around here when I was college age was that he bought the

song "Blowing in the wind" from a Senior at Columbia High

Real name Bob Zimmerman. Hails from Minnesota

It was supposed to be Laurie Wyatt from Millburn H.S., not Columbia.

Who but Dylan could write such inspiring lines as.....

When Ruthie says come see her,

In her *****-tonk lagoon,

Where I can watch her waltz for free,

'neath her Panamanian moon,

An' I say, "Aw come on now Ruthie,

You must know about my debutante,"

An' she says, "Your debutante just knows what you need,

But I know what you want." ...

This should be a game. "The Green Helmet and Other Poems" or "Blood on the Tracks"?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

imonlysleeping said:

This is great poetry:

THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?




This is not:

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl

The sun's not yellow
It's chicken

imonlysleeping said:

The sun's not yellow
It's chicken

William Carlos Williams?

Which is Dylan and which is John Berryman? I defy anyone to tell the difference. Ah, literature!

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry’s ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;
thinking.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen.

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you.
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead.

Maybe I can just find out somethin'
Just scrounge around and maybeeee
Find out what it is that's wrong and seeee
If they ain't somethin' that can beeee
Done about it.

I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma.

He needs to hand over that prize to Smokey Robinson.

annielou said:

He needs to hand over that prize to Smokey Robinson.

After playing that song numerous times, my cousin was inspired to buy a brass bed. Didn't do him much good.

Here's one of my favorites, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands:

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who could they get to carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I put them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I put them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?