Dylan

First time I ever saw  or heard Bob Dylan was on TV after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963.  They introduced him as a new young voice of a new generation and he came on in a dungaree jacket and blue jeans and sang some song in a smoker's voice and the next day at school we all said to each other, "Who was that freak?"


Later that next summer DJ's on the radio were complaining about having to play his songs because they exceeded 2.5 minutes which meant there was less time for commercials, as if the public should care whether the radio station had less time for commercials.


People have been saying stupid things about Bob Dylan since he first came to public attention.


Now some people are saying he shouldn't have been given the Nobel Prize, which I'm sure does not matter to Bob Dylan one whit.


In fact, the Nobel Prize cannot add or diminish from his work. He is simply head and shoulders about any poet of this century or last, the most original, important, best artist in any genre.


The words "brilliant" and "genius" are as overused and worthless now as "existential" and "awesome" and all have been applied to Dylan, but none matter.


One characteristic shared by people of his status is the volume of work they produce: The Beatles just kept churning out songs; Shakespeare did not stop writing after one play or even six.  These folks are driven by something which will not allow them to rest. They simply must work.


The only thing that matters about Dylan is his work, listening to him on my way to work in the morning, riding down the highway, I'm carried away each time by songs which never grow old.


Everyone has his or her favorite lines:  "Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore," or "Twenty years of learning and they put you on the day shift."


The only reason to bother about the Nobel Prize is it brings his name up again. How much poorer we would all have been had we never heard Dylan, and we would never have known it.