Most of his artistic swerves have pissed off his fans and the music critics. After a few years they come around and agree that he was right.
I was horrified as a teenager when he went “Christian.” Ten years later I realized he’d written some of the greatest gospel songs of the 20th century.
Sorry, chica, you are completely wrong. Listen again with open ears.
Come on. This is silly.
I like Bob Dylan. I love Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks. I even liked Infidels, which no one else did. The more recent stuff is good too, especially Time out of Mind. I’m very glad I got to see him live, where he put on a great show. But even restricting myself to more or less well known aging boomer songwriters, I can think of plenty of lyricists who are just as good, if not better: Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Robert Hunter, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Richard Thompson. Paul Simon in particular writes lyrics that are better crafted and more coherent, with consistent imagery. Leonard Cohen got his defense earlier in the thread. Robert Hunter managed to retell “Of Mice and Men” in a short song about two murderous hobos.
Dylan didn’t win because of his lyrics, good though they are. He won because of the mystique of Bob Dylan, the mysterious coolness he projected, how he symbolized the social changes that occurred in the sixties.
AND the social changes as they’re occurring in the 21st century!
From Workingman’s blues #2, 2006:
I was twenty-something, and I busted my ass to get a front row seat to see him at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh.
The opening act was a freaking gospel band. Not what I had come to see. After their first song the crowd grew increasingly restless. By their third song people were booing, and yelling, "Bobby!’ and “DYLAAAAAAAN!”
When the great one finally came out we all went nuts. Finally!
Then we realized that the gospel group was his backup band. And he was only doing christian songs.
Man, that night sucked. I went on to see him ten or so more times over the years, including a great show at JazzFest one year.
I last saw him perform in May 2015 in Milwaukee. His voice can only be technically described as “ruined”. I didn’t even recognize some of his most famous songs, the way he performed them.
But I still enjoyed it. It’s Dylan, man!
Nevertheless, the first leg of his gospel tours is now considered one of the musically best series of concerts he’s ever done by many experts. Sadly, no one noticed back then in the turmoil of controversy and unfulfilled expectations, very similar to his '65/'66 electric shows.
I first heard Dylan when I was a little kid. My Mom loved the song “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and bought the*** Bringing It All Back Home*** album. Something about “Gates of Eden” entranced me, even though my young brain couldn’t make any sense of it.
I STILL have absolutely no idea what it meant, but the images still entrance me.
“Jokerman” is on Infidels and that’s one of his transcendent post-60s songs.
Indeed! “Jokerman” is a masterpiece, “Sweetheart Like You” got Zimmy on the singles charts for the fist time since “Gotta Serve Somebody,” and the rest of the album, though not up to the lofty heights of a *Highway 61 Revisited *or a Blood on the Tracks, is still good, solid Dylan. Alongside Oh Mercy, it’s easily Dylan’s best of the '80s.
You might like the current Baker’s Dozen topic here (starting with post 46801): http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=573445&page=937
Imagine how good *Infidels *could have been if Dylan had included some of the songs from the same sessions that he left off the album, like “Blind Willie McTell” and “Foot of Pride.”
Quality control. One of the problems throughout his career (except for the sixties, he couldn’t do wrong then). He often left out the best songs for very minor ones, that’s why it’s so easy for current Dylan critics to hash out bad lines and lazy writing (that, plus the reoccurring spells of writer’s block he sometimes suffers) to make a point that he’s not Nobel prize material. Fortunately, the Bootleg series corrected many of those blunders in the meantime. For instance, he also left Angelina and The Groom’s Still Waiting At the Altar (that was corrected for the CD version) from the Shot Of Love sessions in the can, and though I like the released album, it’s got two or three stinkers.
He’s not even the first Singerto win.
I agree with this, and some of the comments from the Nobel Committee seem to bear this out. It’s like they just got out from a screening of Inside Llewyn Davis, all starry-eyed (a film that I immensely enjoyed, BTW, and unreservedly recommend).
Leonard Cohen’s sin, in this value context, was being a philosopher in the Zen tradition illuminating the nature of life instead of a folk singer illuminating the nature of a tumultuous society, although (as in Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man and conversely Cohen’s Democracy) there was lots of overlap between the two.
…and laughing?
Many parts are hilarious, like the stupid cat theme that keeps resurfacing – this is, after all, Coen brothers. But there really is an underlying tribute there to the pain and mystique of being a folk music performer, and the Dylan scene at the end was no coincidence. In the style that typifies Coen brothers genius, it’s simultaneously funny, meaningful, and bittersweet.
Bob will be coming on stage to start the second weekend of Desert Trip in a couple of hours. I’d imagine whoever introduces him will get a real kick out of saying something like,* “Put your hands together for Nobel winner, Bob Dylan!”*
Robert Zimmerman. 
Can’t do that, there is too much music I like that I’d rather spend my time on. However, I can agree to disagree, so let’s just settle for that.
Deal!
…do you like Mahler? Mahler is good.