I'm guessing the handful of us who still use LJ don't disagree on this, but I thought I'd put up a post for discussion anyway, if anybody feels like it
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100% agreed! These are the same arguments I've been making to pro-Dylan-prize friends. Also, related to your first point: it's another sign of how successful literary scholars & critics have been at colonizing and assimilating humanities disciplines. Everything is reduced to a text, and everything else (especially performance) is dismissed as superficial or frivolous (with the obvious patriarchal overtones). Poetry fared the worst, having been transformed in the 20th century from a performed tradition to a read one. Now they're trying to do the same thing to popular music.
Thankfully, this seems to be mostly a boomer problem. People of color in our generation have managed to partially restore poetry (via "slam poetry" and hip-hop), and I don't see the millennials embracing the primacy of literature either.
I don't particularly mind the idea of some Nobel poetry people deciding to give a Nobel prize to a lyricist.
That said...
I don't think, if we are giving Nobel Prizes to lyricists, that Bob Dylan should get it over Gil Scott Heron or any other number of people besides Boomer fave Dylan.
I think poetry and lyrics are two completely separate media, and conflating them is another way for lit scholars to assimilate all forms of expression into their preferred frames. It undermines the roles that sound and performance play in texted song.
On the other hand, I couldn't give two shits what a bunch of Swedish lit scholars think about what "literature" is. Since when is Swedish academia the pinnacle of insight?
I couldn't agree more with your second point. Like most musicians, I've never been impressed with his skills as a singer, guitarist, harmonica player, or melodist. But I'll go a step farther and say that, a few high points aside, his lyrics are pretty pedestrian. He's like the George Carlin of lyrics: he says a bunch of things that seem profound and insightful until you take a second look at them and see that they don't reach beyond clever.
I think one of the reasons I'm not as bugged by the lyrics/poetry situation is that I don't see them as being completely separate medium...I see them as being part of the same continuum. I mean, there are lots of lieder that use Goethe's poetry as their lyrics. And there are songwriters who are also poets...and poetry that has musical underlay. So I'm just not bothered.
I get bothered by lit people co-opting everything as their specialization on the job market...but I think that is different than poetry/lyrics situation.
On the second point...specifically Carlin...Ouch! That is one of the reasons why I love you. Onto Dylan, I find "Blowing in the Wind" and the praise of it as one of the most important protest songs of the Civil Rights Movement to be enraging. That song is weak sauce.
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Thankfully, this seems to be mostly a boomer problem. People of color in our generation have managed to partially restore poetry (via "slam poetry" and hip-hop), and I don't see the millennials embracing the primacy of literature either.
Reply
That said...
I don't think, if we are giving Nobel Prizes to lyricists, that Bob Dylan should get it over Gil Scott Heron or any other number of people besides Boomer fave Dylan.
Reply
On the other hand, I couldn't give two shits what a bunch of Swedish lit scholars think about what "literature" is. Since when is Swedish academia the pinnacle of insight?
I couldn't agree more with your second point. Like most musicians, I've never been impressed with his skills as a singer, guitarist, harmonica player, or melodist. But I'll go a step farther and say that, a few high points aside, his lyrics are pretty pedestrian. He's like the George Carlin of lyrics: he says a bunch of things that seem profound and insightful until you take a second look at them and see that they don't reach beyond clever.
Reply
I get bothered by lit people co-opting everything as their specialization on the job market...but I think that is different than poetry/lyrics situation.
On the second point...specifically Carlin...Ouch! That is one of the reasons why I love you. Onto Dylan, I find "Blowing in the Wind" and the praise of it as one of the most important protest songs of the Civil Rights Movement to be enraging. That song is weak sauce.
Reply
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