What is your favorite literary work by this winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature?
What is your favorite literary work by this winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature?
What is your favorite literary work by this winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature?
BRAAAAAP
Tarantula. Chronicles is also good.
Song? Desolation Row:
>But Dylan’s true masterpiece, in my view, is “Desolation Row”, the more than 11-minute song that closes Highway 61 Revisited (1965). I submit that this lyric is the most important poem in English since Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (which influenced it) and that it is far greater than anything produced since then by the official poets canonized by the American or British critical establishment. The epic ambition, daring scenarios, and emotionally compelling detail of “Desolation Row” make John Ashbery’s multiple prize-winning Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) look like the verbose, affected academic exercise that it is. I have written elsewhere (in regard to the selection process for my book on poetry, Break, Blow, Burn) of my rejection of the pretentious pseudo-philosophizing of overpraised contemporary poets like Harvard’s Jorie Graham, none of whom come anywhere near the high artistic rank of Bob Dylan.
It's so embarrassing to see America's "educated people" suck-off Ginsbeg this hard. Why spend $20 for a half-assed blowjob when an """intellectual""" will give you the nastiest sloppy-toppy just for being a subversive """poet"""?
This gripe applies less to Camile Paglia than just about any other literary academic. I reckon she sincerely thinks Howl has poetic merit. Even if she's wrong.
I never got the praise for Ginsberg. Seems like he was a good schmoozer and got into the right cliques. His work has aged like dog shit, no one talks about him or revisits his work. Even someone like Bukowski, who is severely criticized by academic types, has more staying power. Ginsberg is only talked about by people who knew him personally, or people who are super fans of those people.
Yeah, I actually can't stand people who do. Frick Ginsburg. What a degenerate piece of shit. Let him be forgotten with the rest of the garbage. Who needs icons made of shit?
Ginsberg was a pedo and there's a video of him reading a smut poem to a room full of pedophiles at a NAMBLA conference (of which he was a member). Pic-related. He even introduced himself by holding up a stick mask of a child's face and saying 'I'm the poet Allan Ginsberg."
People whine about pederast priests, but none of the homosexuals who were part of NAMBLA get mentioned in the slightest unless it's to praise their "efforts at advancing LGBTQ+ rights in the west."
Yeah they also don't mention the rabbis who flee to Israel after they're accused of raping children
Ginsberg is utter dogshit. He's never written anything of value whatsoever.
Everybody Must Get Stoned is a great song
It Ain’t Me
I really enjoy Tin Angel, it’s really good. It’s a long narrative ballad based on an old folk song with tons of variations over time, usually called Gypsy Davy or Blackjack Davy. Bob Dylan actually did a more tradition Blackjack Davey on Good As I Been To You, but Tin Angel is its own thing. All it retains is the basic plot (a man finds out his women ran off with another man and tracks them both down to confront them) and the opening line (“It was late one night when the boss came home” specifically comes from the Woody Guthrie version of Gypsy Davy)
The lyrics have an intentionally unclear time-setting, some verses seem like it could be set in the old west, medieval times, or modern times. The confrontation in the traditional folk song is very brief and blunt: the man confronts the woman with simple inquiries and she responds in the affirmative, mirroring his questions. Typically it goes something like “Have you forsaken your husband dear? / Have you forsaken your baby?” “Yes I've forsaken my husband dear / but not my pretty little baby”
In Dylan’s, the confrontation dialogue is vast and sprawling, with the characters switching from love to contempt on a dime. It really explores the intricacies of relationships between men and women. The traditional folk song usually ends with the back and forth, and lets the wife’s words hang, while Dylan’s version has the narrative continue, exploring the fate of all three.
Musically, the song is played on a repetitive and pounding riff, as is often the case of Dylan’s modern long songs (Highlands, Tempest, Ain’t Taking, etc.). The riff in Tin Angel is even shorter and more direct than any of the others I’ve listed. It becomes hypnotic. The song feels like it could go on forever.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Bob Dylan - Tin Angel: https://youtu.be/Mf2gFotSjP0?si=fQzOzpVTTvnJ97aR
I’ll post some traditional versions too.
Barbara Dane - Gypsy Davy: https://youtu.be/STx0GmXcCSI?si=l-Q_fGwOuN5VSrlb
Woody Guthrie - Gypsy Davy: https://youtu.be/ufBNBaKO1fc?si=CSG3wnEC5zhlTWrI
Steeleye Span - Black Jack Davy: https://youtu.be/DYwxfb1Rxig?si=m-OPUKRXUywr2LoE
Van Morrison - Gypsy Davy: https://youtu.be/EU4szpxmFUA?si=jF7pAyGWbyZc3Jwt
Bob Dylan - Blackjack Davey: https://youtu.be/58EWKodufko?si=0ARWcjsLmn7ZrWjY
Leonard Cohen also wrote his own song based on Gypsy Davy, it’s called The Gypsy’s Wife. Cohen’s version switches the narrative from a woman running off with a Gypsy to a women running from her Gypsy husband. Cohen’s version also eschews narrative for simple rumination, the lyrics are the inner thoughts of the Gypsy husband.
Leonard Cohen - The Gypsy’s Wife: https://youtu.be/QiKJqXk94NM?si=diK-JQQh6Wg4KyA9
Today I'm thinking Every Grain of Sand.
For me it’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, for which I believe he won the prize.
>As some warn victory, some downfall
>Private reasons great or small
>Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
>To make all that should be killed to crawl
>While others say don’t hate nothing at all
>Except hatred
in your lifetime, they will give the Nobel prize for literature to a rapper, so just mentally prepare yourselves for that.
Dylan is a great songwriter. maybe the greatest.
he writes stupid beat poetry, not music.
sounds like music to me. must be too smart for you or something
You have a low threshold
just an open mind
Oops, it fell out.
thankfully yours is small enough to keep it locked up tight
At least I know what music is
we’re all sure you do
People who say this have never heard beat poetry or Bob Dylan music.
This is beat poetry: https://youtu.be/lGF4H2mJbT4?si=vytlluttSvi8kPSw
This is Bob Dylan: https://youtu.be/agdoeRpTfHg?si=htJqth3VHx_e7CEz
They sound literally nothing alike. They’re not even in the same category
You know what I mean
No I don’t.
Yeah you don't seem very sharp
>le epic troll
Okay I’m not very sharp. Now explain your opinion that Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts is a beat poem. Explain it so simply that someone who’s not very sharp can understand it
Whatever it is, it isn't music.
Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts, and Abandoned Love
these are my favorite of his lyrics, I like this more conventional simple style better than his later stuff
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
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
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
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
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s ahard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
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
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
He deserves the Nobel just for Jimmy Hendricks’s guitar solo on There Must Be Some Kinder Way Out of Here Said the Joker to the King
All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix
Desolation Row
cormac mccarthy
OH WAIT
QUINN THE ESKIMO (THE MIGHTY QUINN)
I seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying this land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem
Well, I travel through east Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Wille McTell
Mmm, I heard that hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Was his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
See the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a moaning
Hear that undertaker's bell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
There's a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He's dressed up like a squire
Bootleg whiskey in his hand
There's a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of that old Saint James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell