The troubadour: Bob Dylan. US singer Bob Dylan, who became an informal historian of America's troubles, has become the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He is the first American in 23 years to win the coveted prize for literature. The last American to get the Nobel Literature Prize was novelist Toni Morrison — in 1993.
The 75-year-old Dylan was named the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary Sara Danius announced here.
In a video interview, Danius said: “He is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition and he is a wonderful sampler, a very original sampler. He embodies the tradition and for 54 years, he has been at it, reinventing himself constantly and creating a new identity.”
Danius cited the examples of poets like Homer and Sappho, “whose poetic texts were meant to be listened to and performed”, to describe why Dylan makes for an apt choice for the Nobel Literature Prize.
“He can be read and should be read, and is a great poet in the English tradition,” added Danius, who is herself a fan of his 1966 album “Blonde on Blonde” — an “extraordinary example of his brilliant way of rhyming, and pictorial filming”.
Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941 and began his musical career in 1959, playing in coffee houses in Minnesota.
Much of his best-known work dates from the 1960s. Songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They are A-Changin'” became anthems of the anti-war and civil rights movements.
His move away from traditional folk songwriting, paired with a controversial decision to “go electric” proved equally influential.
Dylan is already the recipient of 11 Grammies (including for Lifetime Achievement), a Golden Globe, an Oscar, a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a special Pulitzer Prize citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012.
The news that he has been chosen for the honour was met with immense excitement.
European Parliament president Martin Schulz tweeted: “A welcome surprise! Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan celebrates poetic and engaged contribution to music and literature over the last half-century.”
Novelist Salman Rushdie tweeted: “From Orpheus to Faiz, song and poetry have been closely linked. Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. Great choice. Nobel.”
Pakistani musician Salman Ahmad wrote: “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind. Guitar players, poets and peace go together. Congrats Bob Dylan on winning the Nobel Prize.”
A string of Indian celebrities hailed the decision, saying better late than never.
Former Union minister Milind Deora also posted: “Tad bit overdue but better late than never. Congrats Bob Dylan for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature and for always illuminating our path.”
Poet, TV personality and producer Pritish Nandy tweeted: “And yes Bob Dylan only wrote songs of love, longing and protest. But mostly protest. No poet is a poet unless he sings of protest.”
Singer Adnan Sami congratulated Dylan saying that he deserves the honour.
Actor Siddharth posted: “Bob Dylan. Nobel Prize. Literature. I pray many more generations strive to be made literate by this genius. Wonderful news. My hero!”
Filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda also tweeted saying: “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain. Bob Dylan such a beautiful news.”
Singer Vishal Dadlani posted: “Can’t even express my joy! Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature! This is awesome! His songs shaped the meaning of freedom for me.”
The award will be presented to Dylan alongside this year’s other five Nobel Prizes on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s 1896 death.
An unconventional singer – with a raspy, almost nasal voice instead of honeyed tones – burst into public consciousness in the early 1960s with a brace of self-written, hard-hitting songs expressing the growing social unrest and questioning tradition and injustice. “How many years can some people exist/Before they’re allowed to be free?” he asked, and told the establishment that ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’. Over half a century later, the Swedish Academy acknowledged Bob Dylan’s message by making him the first songwriter to be conferred the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The Nobel “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” caps a long illustrious career for Dylan, who turned 75 this May, and is already the recipient of 11 Grammies (including for Lifetime Achievement), a Golden Globe, an Oscar, a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a special Pulitzer Prize citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012.
Dylan seemed to embody, for popular music, Karl Marx’s dictum that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways but the point, however, is to change it. Be it the iconic “Blowing in the Wind” (excerpted above), “Masters of War” (“You that build all the guns/You that build the death planes/You that build the big bombs/You that hide behind walls/You that hide behind desks..”) and more, his ballads not only became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements, but can still articulate deep concern at global and social conditions, both then and now.
He, however, vehemently disputed that he was a spokesman for the 1960s youth while many of his most famous works don’t seem restricted to the age when they came out — or the setting. Such as “The Times They Are A-Changin” with its “Come mothers and fathers/Throughout the land/And don’t criticize/What you can’t understand/Your sons and your daughters/Are beyond your command/Your old road is rapidly agin’/Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand/For the times they are a-changin” seems as valid anywhere now as in 1960s America.
Born Robert Allan Zimmerman in Minnesota on May 24, 1941, to a Jewish family with its roots in Tsarist Russia, he displayed an interest in music right from his school days and, in 1961, dropped out of university for a full-time music career. He also changed his surname to Dylan, in homage to Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
Though his first album “Bob Dylan” (1962) with renditions of popular existing folk and gospel hits remained unnoticed, it was his second “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, with 9 of its 11 tracks written by him, and then “The Times They Are A-Changin”, all self-written, that catapulted him to recognition and renown.
Besides rights and peace, they also chronicled various social injustices – such as “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” about the unprovoked senseless killing of a black hotel barmaid by a young well-connected white man socialite, who gets off lightly, but his vivid, unsettling and even surreal lyrics leave a marked impression.
Take the aftermath of nuclear war: “…I saw a white ladder all covered with water/I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken/I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children/And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard/And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall” or on the “Red Scare” of hidden communists: “I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere/I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair/I looked way up my chimney hole/I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl/They got away…” (“Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”).
Dylan, who is still active, kept on reinventing himself, moving across the whole spectrum of musical genres — rock and roll, blues, country, gospel, jazz — while once riling the establishment of folk music (his original) by performing with an electric band, and then even being part of pop band The Travelling Willburys comprising, among others, Roy “Pretty Woman” Orbison and former Beatles member George Harrison. It is, however, his initial record that makes up his abiding legend. (IANS)