I've made no secret of the fact that I believe that Bob Dylan (née, Zimmerman) is seriously overrated. His prolific music and his lyrics never have made much sense to me ... see: AZ Lyrics. In particular his "poems" set to song seem like a disjointed series of his obscure memories making little sense by themselves or how Dylan strings them together with his plaintiff strumming and harmonica accents.
Indulge me by scanning the words from one of his most famous ditties, Mr. Tambourine Man:
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand Vanished from my hand Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feetI have no one to meet And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels To be wanderin' I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way I promise to go under it.I feel no spiritual uplift by this soporific lyric ... but what do I know about what are worthy words? ... because Bob Dylan has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I scratch my head over this choice by this Prize Committee ... just like I did when Obummer took the Peace Prize in 2009. The degree of deliberations in this committee seem to be more driven by a purple haze than by a purposeful appraisal.
