Thursday 13 October 2016

Your opinion matters


Some bunch of illiterates have just nominated Bob Dylan as 'The Greatest Living Poet'. The fucking idiots.

They probably wasted their whole university careers - and more - in a futile attempt to ascertain the true meaning of his lyrics.

Well I could have saved them loads of money with this snippet:

His lyrics are hard to understand... BECAUSE THEY ARE MEANINGLESS. THEY DO NOT MEAN ANYTHING - AT ALL.

I grant you he is clever and has written some very good tunes/songs, but 'Greatest Living Poet'???  Fuck off. That would be an insult to any minor living poet, let alone any major ones.

I will tell you what award he is most qualified to recieve:

'Best living Looky-Likey for Vincent Price'.


Halloween is coming up...

41 comments:

  1. Never liked him or his music
    Blow that into the wind

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    1. I hope you didn't invest in any Rolf Harris pictures either.

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    2. He must surely not want to have this award.

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    3. I think he is quite traditionally conservative beneath the veneer.

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  2. The Italian Nobel Prize, Dario Fo died today.
    Greetings Maria x

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    1. Fo did not make much of an impact on my life either.

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  3. Na, his chin is too pointy.
    An icon of the sixties, and even today, surely, but I don't recall a Nobel for that category.

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    1. Well, literature, anyway - what's the difference?

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  4. Judging by the picture above, I give him 'Best Worst Dresser'.

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  5. -can't stand his warbling. Joan Baez has more talent.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Thank God someone is willing to say out loud what I've been thinking all afternoon! It just seems ridiculous to me.

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  8. Better you than me ... saying what I am thinking.

    Few times in my life I have been floored. One of them, a long time ago, when still in the motherland, I found myself amidst a bunch of British and in very close proximity to Dylan on stage.

    Mitigating circumstances that I was brought up to never bow to authority or a "name". Brilliant. I wasn't. Tell that to a bunch of people - in awe of the man. If I'd wiped out some graffiti proclaiming that Clapton is god it couldn't have been worse. Never mind. Main thing in life is to keep your nerve in times of adversity.

    Still, Tom, on the positive, there is hope for poets yet.

    U

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    1. The difference is that I only say things like this about people who I know will not read them, or wouldn't care if they did.

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  9. VP's hair must have been styled by Mr Teasey Weasey.

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  10. Oh Tom - and I have always been a lifelong fan of his music and his poetry.
    Sorry. I know one opinion will not tip your scales - but had to say it.
    .

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    1. My first time commenting on your blog because I simply must support Pat in her defense of Bob Dylan.

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    2. Well round of applause to you, Wilma. It would be nice if you qualified it with something other than loyalty, though.

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    3. Dylan's early work was incredibly innovative and thought provoking in the repressive climate of the 1960s in the US. His lyrics ranged from ironic to amusing to revolutionary. Pat's post expressed a lot of what I think; I didn't feel the need to echo her.

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    4. Yes, I am sorry to sound dismissive, Wilma. Dylan formed a big part of my musical youth, and I am very grateful to him for that, as I am for your comment. It's just that I think he does not need or deserve the Nobel Prize for literature, that's all.

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  11. Correct Tom!
    If anybody should get one then Leonard Cohen is a hundred times better.

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    1. No, he is just as meaningless but he needs the money more than Dylan.

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  12. And I'm of the same opinion as The Weaver. I've followed him avidly since going to his first concert in 1966, still go to his concerts and consider the Nobel Prize award as long over-due, critics need to look a bit deeper than his Blowing in the Wind lyrics. Hopefully Leonard Cohen will also win it next year.

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    1. See The Weaver's post for my opinion on your comment.

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  13. Couldn't agree more Tom. I can remember a documentary years ago where he admitted that his lyrics were all a load of tosh.... have never been much of a fan.
    We do live in such a phoney world ! XXXX

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    1. It is not so much phoney as shallow, is what I think. It lacks any depth.

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    2. I remember this too what Jackie saw. He said he just copied stuff out of newspapers because his manager said he could make money this way and sing it and then he laughed.

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    3. Scientology was started for a bet. It is amazing what people want to believe.

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  14. I like Bob Dylan very much. Years ago I went to a Joan Baez concert -- it was at the time she and Dylan were having an affair and she brought him onto the stage. The crowd initially laughed at him, but within 5 minutes he had them in the palm of his hand -- despite the squeaky voice and the dishevelled appearance. Certainly I find some of he lyrics to be very meaningful and reflective of the times as they were changing.

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    1. He is appealing, but that isn't the point as far as I am concerned.

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  15. Couldn't agree more. What a ridiculous choice! I saw an interesting comment today in which Dylan was accused of being a master of what Yvor Winters called "reference to a non-existent plot", details that imply a plot that isn't quite there; in other words MEANINGLESS. Still, I put on a Dylan song about once a year when I'm feeling nostalgia for my lost youth. Snaps me right back to the beauty of the present.

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    1. Yes, we used to listen to Dylan all the time, didn't we? And why not? We also listened to Van Morrison, but he - as I found out when he moved to Bath - is a complete cunt.

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  16. He always had critics but I liked his songs but not his singing.
    Merle...........

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    1. How do you feel about his harmonica playing? I also heard someone say recently that he is a master of the harmonica! As far as I can tell, if you can breathe - which he still just about can - then you can play the mouth-organ.

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  17. Tom, I just have to add it: how can you doubt that the lines "Don't follow leaders/ watch the parkin' meters" by Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan, are not immortal lyrics??

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