Bob Dylan has received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Literature. It is a well-deserved honor.
Back in the early days, there was much disagreement and confusion about Dylan's merits as a singer. Once people got past his unusual voice did an appreciation develop for all the gifts he had to offer. His lyrics in song made us think in ways we never did before.
In a recent interview, he discussed singing the great standards from the 1940s and 1950s and had this to say: "These songs are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it — everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life. These songs are anything but that."
Dylan's perceptive commentary is but one example why the street corner troubadour is a living legend whose words and music continue to dazzle and enrich us.
Congratulations, Bob, our new Nobel laureate! Thanks for speaking directly to our generation and the generations yet to come. I'm happy to be living in your time.
Back in the early days, there was much disagreement and confusion about Dylan's merits as a singer. Once people got past his unusual voice did an appreciation develop for all the gifts he had to offer. His lyrics in song made us think in ways we never did before.
In a recent interview, he discussed singing the great standards from the 1940s and 1950s and had this to say: "These songs are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it — everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life. These songs are anything but that."
Dylan's perceptive commentary is but one example why the street corner troubadour is a living legend whose words and music continue to dazzle and enrich us.
Congratulations, Bob, our new Nobel laureate! Thanks for speaking directly to our generation and the generations yet to come. I'm happy to be living in your time.
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