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Pulitzer rocks
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With Bob Dylan getting a Pulitzer Award citation, the iconic poet, prophet and rocker gets another mention from the writers and critics who prophesise with their pens
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Rock on Serenely impervious to the slew of honours, Bob Dylan continues on a punishing concert schedule
In 1964 Bob Dylan unleashed upon the unsuspecting world a song that in its own peculiar way changed the world. The song went, …There’s a battle outside, and it is ragin’. It’ll soon shake your windows, and rattle
your walls, for the times they are a-changin. And nothing could be further from the truth with Dylan getting a Pulitzer Award citation this year for his, “profound impact on popular music and American culture”.
It is only of late that the lyrical works of composers are being Pulitzer worthy. Though there has always been a prize for music, the only genre that was deemed to be worthy of the prestigious institution has been classical music. Way back in 2004, at a seminar, “Shifting Ears: A Symposium on the Present State and Future of Classical Music Criticism,” sponsored by the Music Critics Association of North America and the National Arts Journalism program at Columbia University, the expansion of Pulitzer’s said horizons were eagerly debated by a panel that consisted of Joshua Kosman, classical music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle a Pulitzer Prize administrator Sig Gissler; a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Gunther Schuller, and writer Patrick Smith.
During much of the symposium they talked about Dylan’s contribution to the music scene and American popular culture in general.
Dylan’s contribution to the counterculture movement has been written about endlessly. From the time he burst on to the scene in the early sixties, Dylan made a powerful impact on cultural conscience of the nation. He stubbornly refused to be formulated in a phrase, tripping lightly through genres even as different sets of disciples tried to compartmentalise his music.
He started off as the new voice of folk, and by the time he was labelled as the great protest singer with anthemic songs like The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, he had moved on to intensely personal surreal lyrics like the towering Desolation Row where Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot argue in the captain’s tower while Casanova is being punished “by feeding him with self confidence after poisoning him with words.”
And then just as people got a groove on his “magic swirling ship” Dylan did the unthinkable and turned up in dark glasses and went electric. Quite a few of Dylan’s songs like Blowing in the Wind, All Along The Watchtower, Like A Rolling Stone, Knocking on Heaven’s Door have been covered by artists like Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix, , Guns ’n’ Roses and The Dave Mathew’s Band.
Subterranean Homesick Blues is another great Dylan track that stands testament his ability to bring structure and form to a random jumble of words. The video for this song in D. A. Pennebaker’s film, Don’t Look Back is a seminal rock video.
Closer to home, Bob Dylan fans can expect euphoric Dylan-esque experiences with our very own Indian Bob Dylan Lou Majaw, who is sure to play a few gigs and concerts to celebrate the rocker’s citation. The 66-year-old rocker has not slowed down one bit. Still playing a variety of gigs and concerts, Dylan has proved time and again that he is a rock icon that one simply can not forget. He surely has shown the world that, “…Times they are a-changin”, and still be forever still.
AKSHAY RAJMOHAN
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