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Excellent! when you think of his body of workand the influence it has had on politics, music, poetry its a well deserved award. I ususpect there will be naysayers, but they perhaps dont appreciate the influence his work truely has had.
Although impossible to pic a fav lyric - I love the painful simplicity of Tangled up in Blue - how he used very simple and down to earth prose to describe relationships and life - its the almost effortless simplicity of the strory telling the increases the meloncholoy
Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’
I was layin’ in bed
Wondrin’ if she’d changed at all
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like
Mama’s homemade dress
Papa’s bank book wasn’t big enough
And I was standin’ on the side of the road
Rain fallin’ on my shoes
Heading out for the east coast
Lord knows I’ve paid some dues
Gettin’ through
Tangled up in blue
She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam I guess
But I used a little too much force
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out west
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was walkin’ away
I heard her say over my shoulder
We’ll meet again some day
On the avenue
Tangled up in blue
I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I was looking for to be employed
Workin’ for a while on a fishin’ boat
Right outside of Delacroix
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind
And I just grew
Tangled up in blue
She was workin’ in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer
I just kept lookin’ at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I’s just about to do the same
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, Don’t I know your name?
I muttered somethin’ under my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces
Of my shoe
Tangled up in blue
She lit a burner on the stove
And offered me a pipe
I thought you’d never say hello, she said
You look like the silent type
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And everyone of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin’ on
Like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue
So now I’m goin’ back again
I got to get to her somehow
All the people we used to know
They’re an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenters’ wives
Don’t know how it all got started
I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives
But me, I’m still on the road
Headin’ for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point
Of view
Tangled up in blue
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He’s alright, but he’s no Billy Bragg.
From the sublime to the sublimer…
How to tell someone to fuck off and die…
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinningYou got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winningYou say I let you down
You know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt
Why then don’t you show itYou say you lost your faith
But that’s not where it’s at
You had no faith to lose
And you know itI know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You’re in withDo you take me for such a fool
To think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What he don’t know to begin withYou see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”
But you don’t mean itWhen you know as well as me
You’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once
And scream itNo, I do not feel that good
When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief
Perhaps I’d rob themAnd now I know you’re dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don’t you understand
It’s not my problemI wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be youYes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you
How to tell the world that a great wrong has been done to a man…
Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out “My God they killed them all”
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.Three bodies lying there does Patty see
And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously
“I didn’t do it” he says and he throws up his hands
“I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving” he says and he stops
“One of us had better call up the cops”
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the hot New Jersey night.Meanwhile far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Patterson that’s just the way things go
If you’re black you might as well not shown up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said “I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates”
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said “Wait a minute boys this one’s not dead”
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says “Wha’d you bring him in here for ? He ain’t the guy !”
Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.Four months later the ghettos are in flame
Rubin’s in South America fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley’s still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame
“Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?”
“Remember you said you saw the getaway car?”
“You think you’d like to play ball with the law ?”
“Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?”
“Don’t forget that you are white”.Arthur Dexter Bradley said “I’m really not sure”
Cops said “A boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we’re talking to your friend Bello
Now you don’t wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow
You’ll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain’t no Gentleman Jim”.Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It’s my work he’d say and I do it for pay
And when it’s over I’d just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.All of Rubin’s cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin’s witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The DA said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder ‘one’ guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand ?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That’s the story of the Hurricane
But it won’t be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he’s done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
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and a cover…
So he didnt get it for his singing then? 
In the 60s he was a massive influence on the music scene here with many covers of his making the charts through other artists. He even touched the nascent Prog Rock scene with The Nice covering several of his songs*. George Harrison too was a massive fan. Lay Lady Lay is one of my favourite love songs.A living legend. Well deserved honour.
* From memory - She Belongs To Me, Country Pie and My Back Pages. ELP also covered The Man In The Long Black Coat.
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Am going to do a Bletch - am on a train from Waterloo - absolutely trollied on free beer.
Bobster did a few good tunes, but let’s be honest he’s not a Noble Prize winner.
Hopefully he’ll have the decency to donate the prize money to a worthy charriddee…
/
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This topic is temporarily closed for 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.
I reckon even Bob would be a bit embaressed to accept the award.
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Thank you Ted!
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Maggies Farm …
“I try my best to be just like I am. But everybody wants you to be just like them
They sing while you slave … And I just get bored”
I don’t get it 
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Bowie just cut out words from newspapers and rearranged them in an artistic way … Like dadaism or something
Chutters, stop down voting anyone that’s not a Bob luvvie.
You like him, as do others, but others are ambivalent or don’t like his music.
As per my earlier post, how did he get a Nobel Prize? It should be about more worthy endeavours rather than a Songsmith who 's banged out a few protest tunes earlier in his career…
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Originally posted by @areloa-grandee
Someone is downvoting on this thread? seriously?
Twat of highest order award to the snivelly coward refusing to show himself…
Come now. Sotonians is actually better than your beloved EU. Yes, we do have an unelected Commission that makes the rare anti-democratic decision (e.g. the decision to remove account deletion as an option to users), but in general, the entire community takes the EU Commission’s role as agenda setters, doubling up as a Parliament that gets to yay or nay contributions.
Given your personal sense of loss of the EU’s structures in our lives, I am therefore surprised to see our new and improved form so readily dismissed
Taking on a more serious note, I personally think downvotes ought to be used for stuff that’s unacceptable, and replies should be used for dissent, but it’s not something I would enforce.
In the context of this thread, I really don’t get the opening downvote, but I can see why you attracted three downvotes on this little fella. I think you were fair on the first bit, harsh on the second.
But fuck it, passion is just as valuable around here. Accept two upvotes in solidarity from someone else that’s occasionally harsh too.
Originally posted by @Fowllyd
One of my all-time heroes, so I naturally think it’s massively well deserved.
I obviously know a lot of Dylan through osmosis. He’s that big.
Only album I’ve listened to his is Modern Times. I love Nettie Moore from that. Superb example of why he’s getting the literature prize.
Try reading some of what was said by the Nobel jury about why they chose him, perhaps? It’s not about whether or not you like his music; it’s his literary contribution that’s being rewarded, and that over more than half a century, not just a few years in the 1960s. Essentially, his work is being regarded as poetry here, and his contrbution to literature is what’s being rewarded.
For a few more opinions on the award and why it’s well deserved, try reading this article. And, purely out of interest of course, what’s your view on Mo Yan? Or Svetlana Alexievich? How well-deserved were their Nobel awards?
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“I obviously know a lot of Dylan through osmosis. He’s that big.”
What does that mean? sorry 
Tons of bands have covered his songs. I’ve probably heard Dylan that I don’t know is Dylan.
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