{"id":49428,"date":"2016-11-13T01:06:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T05:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=49428"},"modified":"2016-11-13T02:45:07","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T06:45:07","slug":"if-there-was-a-nobel-prize-for-the-artsbob-dylan-would-have-been-given-that-a-long-time-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=49428","title":{"rendered":"If There Was a Nobel Prize For The Arts, Bob Dylan Would Have Been Given That a Long Time Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Sridhar K Chari<\/strong><\/p>\n

(American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, throwing up a bit of a controversy. Sure, nobody ever said literature can\u2019t be sung (we in India know that well enough) but the prize does not do justice to Dylan\u2019s genius, muses SRIDHAR K CHARI<\/strong>)<\/em><\/p>\n

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M<\/strong>ost nations boast a Bardic tradition featuring the lone singer-songwriter. He or she pours fourth songs of nature perhaps, philosophical musings, or devotion to a personal God. Love and loss is a common enough theme. India is no stranger to this \u2013 Andal, Thyagaraja, Meera, Akkamahadevi, and in more modern times, songs of protest and social challenge. We do think of many of them as poets, and their words live independently of the music.<\/p>\n

Even the Veda \u2013 the original \u201cRiks\u201d were later sung to elaborate melodies, which became the Saman. When words and music go together, they capture hearts and minds and fire the imagination like little else can.<\/p>\n

It is, without doubt, one of the greatest cultural products of America, and a true artistic gift to the world. The singer-songwriter is alive and well there, sometimes crossing over to the mainstream, sometimes not. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen (from Canada) and Paul Simon are living legends, well into their seventies and eighties. There are women too from Carole King and Joan Baez to Joni Mitchell and Lucinda Williams. Talented youngsters, like, say, a Lera Lynn, form an under-recognised group, not quite part of the \u201cpop\u201d mainstream of MTV and top 20 charts. And across the Atlantic we have veterans like Mark Knopfler.<\/p>\n

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While we picture the Indian bard with perhaps a tambura, the Western songwriter has to have his or her guitar, sometimes supporting it with rhythm and interspersed melody, sometimes letting it rise and soar and dip and float with haunting harmonies. From Country and Folk to the Blues, and the \u201cspoken Blues\u201d — where it is the words and harmony that dominate, with the melodies sometimes only suggested, subtle and fleeting.
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\nBob Dylan, just recently and expectedly controversially, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, is at the apex of this art, and has been for a long time. And right from the beginning of this career, from say Blowing in the Wind<\/em> his songs have been as much about his words as his music \u2013 they even said he couldn\u2019t really sing. The early songs were characterised as \u201cprotest songs,\u201d a categorisation he would later reject. The man who was \u201cso good with words\u201d as Joan Baez would later say in the beautiful Diamonds and Rust<\/em>, purportedly about her relationship with him, clearly had a lot more to say and thought of himself that way, even way back then.<\/p>\n

But they were still songs. As one contemporary put it, nobody could put a song across like Bob Dylan. And nobody created songs quite like him. He has inspired countless to take up his songs and generate their own hits. Kitchen singers believed they could sing his songs beautifully, and they could, winning prizes at TV song contests. Album after album, decade after decade, Bob has been around, his lyrics and music discussed, dissed, lauded \u2013 Dylanology is a massive body of work.<\/p>\n

At the time of this article being written, there is no word yet on whether he was going to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature, mention of it was removed from his website, and Swedish academy officials were griping at his arrogance and impoliteness at his lack of acknowledgement.<\/p>\n

When the prize was announced official Sara Danius talked about how his words will one day be read much the way a Sappho or Homer is read today. And the literature Nobel and Dylan has been something that has been talked about in the same breath for a long time now. That it is controversial, there is no doubt. Writers have been griping \u2013 one tweeted, \u201cso can I win the Grammy now,\u201d and another said that this was an insult to writers. How one wishes there was a Nobel for the arts \u2013 Dylan would have been given that a long time ago, and there would not have been a wrong note in the chorus of cheers.<\/p>\n

Fandom is so much a part of the American singer-songwriter phenomenon that I can happily declare that I am very much one of them, without having to worry about my \u2018critical objectivity\u2019 as writer and commentator. And while many of us are cheering, there are some, and I am again one of them, who think that it does not really make sense to give Dylan the literature Nobel. Many clearly did, from British Oxbridge types to journalists to the guy at Harvard who has a course on Dylan.<\/p>\n

And they do know what they are talking about, for along with the mixed metaphors, clunky phrasing and free word associations and word games, are true masterpieces. Read, and then again, read and listen, to Blind Willie Mctell<\/em>, to Born in Time<\/em> (I prefer Unreleased Version #2<\/em> in the deluxe edition of the 8th Volume of the Bootleg Series called Tell Tale Signs<\/em>, \u2013 try to hunt that one down if you can \u2013 me and Karnatik music friends swear that it is in Mohana raga \u2013 the pentatonic scale is common enough across cultures), to What Was It You Wanted <\/em>from Oh Mercy,<\/em> to I Shall Be Released<\/em>\u2026……several dozen albums, a few hundred songs\u2026<\/p>\n

Dylan confessed to an interviewer once that \u201che was not a melodist,\u201d the way, perhaps, other singer-songwriters are. Many of his songs have shades of melodies gone by, opening himself up to questions of plagiarism. The way he worked, he said, was to run melodies in his mind, and at some point, the \u201cwords change.\u201d His writing style can also be highly allusive \u2013 one recalls that even T.S. Eliot got into trouble for that.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, in the end, this debate will tell us something about that strange relationship between words and music in a song, syllable and swara, sahitya<\/em> and sangeetha.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grab a CD (an LP would be even better, if you are that kind of audiophile) of Infidels. There is a song in there called I and I. Mark Knopfler, who worked with him on that album, once said that just the opening lines were enough to make other songwriters stop writing. As the song plays, let it wash over you\u2026 there is more than just man and guitar, it is a \u201crock\u201d song, and towards the end \u2013 <\/p>\n


\nOutside of two men on a train platform there\u2019s nobody in sight
\nThey\u2019re waiting for spring to come, smoking down the track
\nThe world could come to an end tonight, but that\u2019s all right
\nShe should still be there sleepin\u2019 when I get back<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There is poetry there all right, but there is something else that no poet can do by himself. When Dylan sings \u201csmoking down the track\u201d that lilt, that emotional shock as the notes hit home \u2013 is it the words, is it the music? Where does the magic come from? <\/p>\n

The Nobel Prize for Literature for Bob Dylan? That is great, but one doesn\u2019t really know what to make of that. Sorry, Swedish Academy, you don\u2019t have a category for this guy. Whether he comes to you on December 10 or not, whether he gives that speech or not, Dylan is one of the great artistic geniuses of all time. The controversy is a bit of a pity.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I think I shall listen to\u2026\u2026.Nobody \u201cCept You.<\/em> And no, there is no message in why I choose to close mentioning that particular one.<\/p>\n

It is a song, drifting in the wind\u2026………..<\/p>\n

(This Article on Bob Dylan written by Sridhar K Chari appeared first in the “Saamagaana-The First Melody” Magazine under the heading”Smoking down the track”)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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By Sridhar K Chari (American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, throwing up a bit of a controversy. Sure, nobody ever said literature can\u2019t be sung (we in India know that well enough) but the prize does not do justice to Dylan\u2019s genius, muses SRIDHAR K CHARI) Most nations boast a …<\/p>\n

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