As Human Gods Aim For Their Mark

Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

The most prestigious prizes in the world are entirely subjective - based on no criteria except the opinions of handful of people.  Take the Oscars.  Back in 1998, the voters decided  "Shakespeare in Love" was a better film than "Saving Private Ryan", a decision that seemed ridiculous then, and hasn't aged well.  

The Nobel Peace Prize is particularly mockable.  Not just because Yasser Arafat won, or because Barack Obama won before he had done anything but win an election (to the President's credit, he was embarrassed about the award, and quietly inquired about declining). No, the Peace Prize is ridiculous because it's an award that is determined by a quintet of Norwegian politicians nobody has ever heard of.   As I wrote back in 2009:

"A prize that is decided by less than half a dozen Norwegian legislators should not get everyone so excited. Norway has roughly the population of Alabama, and its legislators aren’t exactly major players in world affairs. We shouldn’t care who wins, or who gets passed over, or what it all means. It doesn’t - well, it shouldn’t – mean anything."

Then there's the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I've been poking fun at this overrated award for a while now.  Again, we have a group of Swedish, um, book-readers? - deciding the most prestigious award in literature.  Why should their opinions matter more than the editors at the London Review of Books, or the subscribers for that matter.  And those Swedish arbiters of taste have had more than a few missteps since they started handing these trinkets out in 1901.  Among the snubbed are James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Henrik Ibsen, and Henry James.  In recent years they've gone out of their way to ignore American writers, and one Nobel prize judge said this was intentional. 

Look, we know that Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world.  But we don't know that Svetlana Alexievich and Tomas Tranströmer (to name 2 recent winners) are better writers than Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth (to name two Americans who haven't gotten the call).  Down with the Nobels I've been saying for years.

And then, they went and honored my man Bob Dylan.

Me & Bob

By the time I joined the world's population in 1966, Bob Dylan had released 7 studio albums.

He had already told us the answer was blowin' in the wind, that a hard rain was a gonna fall, the times were a changin', that it wasn't him babe, and that it's all over now (baby blue).

He had introduced us to Tom Thumb, Queen Jane, Napoleon in rags, Hattie Carroll, Maggie, Mr. Tambourine Man, Johanna, and several Rainy Day Women.

He had revived folk, gone electric, crashed his motorcycle, and introduced the Beatles to marijuana.

So I was a little late on the Dylan thing.  As a young teen discovering rock and roll in the mid to late 70's, he didn't speak to me at all.  His protest music was a 60's artifact, his contemporary music mediocre, and his voice - well, I am ashamed to say I said the same thing many others had said before and since - a great songwriter, but please, let the Byrds or anyone else cover your stuff.

Then I heard Blood on the Tracks.  As a music listener, I still haven't fully recovered from that moment.  This was a personal album, about love lost, and about accepting that loss with grace (though the rage of 'Idiot Wind' punctures that grace*).  Every song was a masterpiece, with complex rhyming schedule, bursts of wisdom, subtle vocals, and yes, poetry.

*  "I can't even touch the books you read" is arguably the greatest insult in music history; though this bit from Positively 4th Street is in contention too:  "Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes.  You'd know what a drag it is to see you."

I went back to Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited, and his old folk stuff.  I dug into the Basement Tapes.  I was surprised at how funny he was - and how deeply, truly American.  Along with Van Morrison, he became one of my Twin Gods of Songwriting.  And I never looked back.

###

Can song lyrics be literature?  Of course they can.  Most of the time they are not - in fact, most of the time Bob Dylan's lyrics are not.  But put the lyrics of Shelter from the Storm next to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", and it stands proudly.

Is the Nobel Literature Prize still ridiculous?  There are many here among us who think it's a joke -     a bunch of anonymous Swedish people passing judgment.

But in the end, we, collectively, as readers and listeners, get to decide what matters.  For indefensible reasons we've decided that a Prize, endowed over a century ago by the inventor of dynamite, matters.

And if it's going to matter, I'm glad they gave it to Robert Alan Zimmerman.  



Bonus Material:  I once made the case for Dylan to Dylan-haters in, of all things, a post about golf.  Here it is if you're interested...



 

 

A Nod to the Gods

The Appeal of Golf

All tastes are subjective.

If your tastes run to bluegrass, biographies, bratwurst, and brunettes, that’s what you like – and no amount of persuasion will change your preferences to rock and roll, romances, ratatouille, and redheads.

That’s why I never defend Bob Dylan. Many people hate Dylan’s music – or at least, don’t understand his appeal. They acknowledge his greatness as a songwriter, but can’t for a second grasp why any sane person with working eardrums would choose to listen his raspy warble.

I could make a reasoned case for Dylan. I can explain his revolutionary role in American music, play songs from Blood on the Tracks that don’t have the nasally twang of his bigger hits, explain the complex rhyming structure of a masterpiece like "Tangled Up in Blue". I can argue that singing isn’t just about a perfect voice, it’s about acting – and that Dylan’s singing gift is the ability to convey humor, anger, sadness, intelligence, sarcasm, even surrender. I can logically argue that if all we wanted in singing was a perfect voice, opera would rule the charts and rock and roll would only be played on the ass-end of the AM dial.

But if you don’t like listening to Dylan, I can’t persuade you with reason, logic, and facts that you should.

(This post started out as a post on golf, but I'm half-tempted to change gears here and talk about the role of criticism. For what is film, music, literary, or art criticism but the very attempt to persuade others with reason, logic and facts that they should like or not like something? Nah, let’s get back to golf.)

I bring all this up because I got in a conversation with someone recently who was opposed to golf. I mean, really opposed. Morally opposed and emotionally opposed and athletically opposed. He railed on about how it’s not a sport and it’s an expensive time-waster and that the world would be a better place if golfers would spend their time and money on more constructive pursuits.

What a moron.

Okay, that’s not fair; he’s entitled to the things he likes and doesn’t like. But I found myself, against my better judgment, making the case for golf. Or at least, making the case for why he should give it a shot. And I came up with two arguments:

The first, admittedly weaker, argument is that the great and powerful golf. Presidents golf, billionaires golf, movie stars golf. My point isn’t that we should imitate these people, God no. Or even that they are, in fact, great. My point is that these people have options. Barack Obama and Jack Nicholson can do pretty much what they want on weekends, but they mostly choose to golf. And, in the case of Obama and Nicholson, these are not people who grew up at country clubs; they came to golf later in life and fell in love with it. This should say something to the non-golfer. This should say, hmm, maybe I should give this a shot.

But the second, and more powerful argument, is that athletes golf. Michael Jordan has options, too. But more than that His Airness, perhaps more than anyone alive, knows what it is like to perform majestic athletic feats – to soar through the air with grace, ingenuity, and power. To outrun, out-jump, outwit, out-compete and out-everything the opponent. To hear thousands roar in ecstatic approval of his physical prowess.

Well, Michael Jordan spends the bulk of his free time golfing. And it is not just Michael Jordan – seemingly every baseball, hockey, soccer, football, basketball and tennis star on the planet are passionate golfers. Even those like Charles Barkley, who remains committed to this pursuit even though all available evidence suggests he should try an easier hobby, like nuclear fusion.

Why is that? What is the appeal of golf?

Everyone who loves the game already knows the answer to that question. But for those who don't, I'll turn to Ron Shelton, the writer/director of Tin Cup (and, not incidentally, a former minor league baseball player). In the following exchange Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy (Kevin Costner) explains the golf swing to Molly Griswold (Rene Russo):

At another point in the film, Tin Cup offers a more direct explanation for the appeal of golf: “Sex and golf are the two things you can enjoy even if you're not good at them.”

I explained all this to the moron. Got nowhere. He probably likes Mariah Carey, celebrity self-help books, black licorice and pink Mohawks. There’s no accounting for bad taste.