So you’ve heard that someone called Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, right? Did you know that Dylan was not a novelist like Salman Rushdie or Enid Blyton? He was a musician. Why did they give him an award meant for writers of epics?
Well, because that’s what Dylan did, in effect. What is the meaning of an epic? It’s a large comprehensive story or commentary about life. And Robert Allen Zimmerman created just that. Known as one of the most influential lyricists of the last century (if not all time), Dylan penned words that said things that everyone needed to think about. In fact, one of his most famous songs, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, was written in 1965 like a free-flowing mini-novel, where he “vomitted” 10 pages worth of stream-of-conscious prose and then picked out the most song-worthy lines to weave with melody.
Flashback
Robert Zimmerman was born to Jewish immigrant parents in the United States and grew up in Minnesota. He was a college-dropout who came to the limelight in the early 1960s as a one-man vocal-guitar-harmonica band with his soft-yet-aggressive blend of Folk, Blues and Gospel with protest lyrics. What a powerful strategy it was to attack big governments on civil rights issues and the danger of nuclear power with something as raw and humble as folk music! A motorcycle accident interrupted his career in 1965. But he saw that as a much-needed break “from the rat race”. He recovered and is now in the 29th year of his ‘Never-Ending Tour’.
Musicians and songwriters down the years — from Prince, Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and even The (great) Beatles — said they’d been influenced by Dylan. But Dylan’s influence stretched across his era and even across genres. In fact, even the famous Rolling Stone magazine is believed to have been named after the ‘rolling stone’ in his 1965 song! Though he is considered among the greatest Rock-And-Roll artistes, Dylan was more inclined towards Folk music. And it showed in the simplicity and depth of his poetic lyrics and song structure. He is called ‘The voice of his generation’, and many say his thoughtful lyrics infused a sense of mindfulness and intellectual seriousness into the Rock genre, which is usually thought of as banging your head against walls.
If you want to learn about how the art is more important than accolades, just look at Bob Dylan. He was an outspoken man who didn’t like to care if anyone liked him, even his fans! Whether he was genuinely married to his art or just cultivated that image for himself, we don’t know. But his free-thinking persona sure encouraged his fans and generations down the line to be themselves and individualistic and stand up for their rights. He would rather make music that spoke his mind, even if no one else agrees with or understands him. And that is the mark of a true bard.
