American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been revered by many as the greatest living poet, yet the announcement of him winning the Nobel prize in literature for 2016 has ruffled many feathers.
The way humans chose the award recipients has always confused us dogs. You’ve Oscars to honour the best acting talents and yet you wouldn’t hand one to Rin Tin Tin or Uggie. You’d give Barack Obama a Nobel for Peace, but would snub a dog like Zanjeer who has in our humble opinion done more to thwart terror and bring peace.
For over five decades, Dylan’s music and lyrics have riveted cultural consciousness to things that matter ― love, liberty and peace. Dylan’s music spoke to a generation bruised by wars and galvanized the civil rights movement.
Like Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, Dylan belongs to a different sect of musicians. The rare genius of the genre benders ― poet, singer, social reformer…
The thing about Dylan is he wrote the words that he sang.
So what if his poetry is lyrical, it is far from prose. Consider this line from ‘Blowin’ in the Wind‘, the anti-war anthem where he asks the ever-burning question, be it Vietnam war or Syria…
How many deaths will it take till they know \ That too many people have died?
See Also: The horse who brought an end to the war
Why dogs love Bob Dylan?
What makes this dog hail Bob Dylan’s win with a louder howl is the fact that like Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens and Fiona Apple, he too is a devout dog lover!
Dogs have not only featured in Bob Dylan’s album covers or song lyrics but he has shared his entire life with them. Right from his young years to recording his earliest songs, dogs (and cats) have been everywhere.
Few summers ago, a delightful adaptation of Dylan’s 1970 song “If Dogs Run Free” was brought out as a book by illustrator Scott Campbell.
If dogs run free, then why not we,
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony,
Of two mules, trains and rain,
The best is always yet to come
That’s what they explain to me
Just do your thing,
you’ll be king
If dogs run free
If dogs run free, then what must be
Must be and that is all
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall
In harmony with the cosmic sea
True love needs no company
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole
If dogs run free.
Isn’t it poetry in essence? How can his winning a Nobel for Literature be unjustified?
May be he should get a special Nobel just for being Bob Dylan 🙂
In a demo of every grain of sand, you can clearly hear Bob’s dog barking throughout. It’s a great duet. Cheers!
I shot a great pic of Bob with his beagle on his lap, at the wheel of his tour bus after the early show of The Rolling Thunder Review, in Rochester, NY. I was a local radio DJ and had backstage access. Never published the shot.