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Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Yesterday it was announced that Bob Dylan had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It says plenty about both the stature and importance of both Dylan and the Nobel Prize organisation itself that – save perhaps among some groups of literary elitist critics, pedants and those whose first instinct is to sneer at anything – the general reaction has been that the accolade is fitting, appropriate and possibly even ‘not before time’, despite things having to be stretched a degree or two in order to squeeze Dylan’s oeuvre within the qualifying criteria.

Like many a great artist or artiste in any field, as a musician Dylan has produced a distinctive and challenging body of work brimming with lyrics of sublime beauty, brilliance, insight, irony, satire, bitterness, tenderness and humour that have often dazzled and impressed as well as surprised and wrong-footed. He has also produced plenty which is mediocre and frankly worth avoiding, one of the interesting aspects being that even those of us who have followed his 55-plus year career for the most part from the distance of one remove (as opposed to disciple-like devotion) would probably argue long into the night as to how many and which of his songs qualify under this heading.

I felt unable to let this award pass without comment but also inadequate to the task of summing up Dylan’s impact and importance.  Even if he had died in the motorcycle accident on 29th July 1966 in which he broke his neck (or was it just several vertebrae?) – and then ‘disappeared from public view’ for over six months – his impact upon 20th Century American music (and therefore the world’s) would have been assured. As it is this restless, nomadic and spiky innovator has continued to write, compose and perform for over five decades without ever losing his creativity or boring his audience, even on those evenings (as happens to all musicians) when his concerts fail to hit the heights.

In trawling the newspapers overnight, I came across this article which seemed to closer to celebrating appropriately the career of Bob Dylan than I could ever manage – a reprint from 2011 as it happens – by Andy Gill and Jack Shepherd on the website of – THE INDEPENDENT

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About Michael Stuart

After university, Michael spent twelve years working for MELODY MAKER before going freelance. He claims to keep doing it because it is all he knows. More Posts