![\"folk_city_1979\"](\"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/folk_city_1979.jpg\")
\nClose up of Folk City 20th anniversary flyer (1979)
\n4-11-61 Robert Dylan<\/p>\n
\nClose up of Folk City 20th anniversary flyer (1979)
\n4-11-61 Robert Dylan<\/p>\n
In many respects, Bob Dylan\u2019s Nobel Prize in literature is an affirmation of what those in my songwriter circle have been doing for decades \u2013 crafting songs in which music and lyrics interlock in poetic balance. Is it literature, or something else? Certainly, Dylan\u2019s lyrics were not meant to stand alone on the page, though many of his lines and phrases have become as familiar as Shakespeare or the Bible.<\/p>\n
My old friend, the songwriter Jack Hardy, now deceased, would have probably sneered at Dylan\u2019s Nobel accolade \u2013 after all, in Jack\u2019s demimonde of folk music, Dylan was a sellout. He was\/is a pop star of tremendous fame and fortune. That makes him a problematic figure to some, but I see his hyper success, to a great extent, as a product of the 60s, when songwriters and rock bands burst onto the scene promoted by an expanding record industry and the rich diversity of free form radio. He tapped into the cultural revolution of the moment \u2013 as did the Beatles \u2013 and his songs were disruptive and catalytic, both in social and aesthetic terms.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s harder now. There are a million more opportunities to get one\u2019s work out there, which is a good thing, but the method of distribution is atomized, and audiences break down into smaller and smaller niches. The shared experience of a stunning new song crackling across the airwaves such as \u201cLike a Rolling Stone\u201d or \u201cTangled up in Blue\u201d is largely a thing of the past. We now rely on youtube videos, streaming music, or other electronic forms of connective tissue.<\/p>\n
For many songwriters that also means doing it the old fashioned way, playing to people directly, making tours of small clubs and even living rooms. And in fact, the kind of song that Bob Dylan mastered was the outgrowth of an oral tradition deeply rooted in western culture, cross-pollinated by influences from the African diaspora in North America. Jack Hardy would have called it the bardic tradition (minus the lyres and leprechauns, please), and he was right. The kind of song that Dylan cultivated and ultimately transcended was based on an ancient means of lyrical communication that pre-dates what we think of now as literature.<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019d like to think that the Nobel committee has recognized one of the greatest and most complex artists of our time not so much for extending the boundaries of literature, but for reconnecting us to the roots of literature itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Close up of Folk City 20th anniversary flyer (1979) 4-11-61 Robert Dylan In many respects, Bob Dylan\u2019s Nobel Prize in literature is an affirmation of what those in my songwriter circle have been doing for decades \u2013 crafting songs in which music and lyrics interlock in poetic balance. Is it literature, or something else? Certainly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6797"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6805,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6797\/revisions\/6805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianrose.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}