# Has your taste narrowed or is it narrowing?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I find myself in a continual loop of the large category of Classical and selective portions of what that entails, Dave Matthews Band & Phish.

It's kind of nice to see some formulas developing in me, as long as I stay aware of them.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I'm just the opposite. With the plethora of music available online anytime anywhere I find myself "chasing threads" into areas I never dreamed of before. Not only deeper than I ever dove before, but wider.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

On the contrary, my taste is growing day by day. New composers and performers , still going strong.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Well, I'm still exploring within classical, just not other Genres now.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

For example, the Netherlands Bach thread has left me with much to shuffle through!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> For example, the Netherlands Bach thread has left me with much to shuffle through!


And I just bought something due trough another tread .


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Rogerx said:


> And I just bought something due trough another tread .


Was it the Kempff GV?


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

When I first got into classical music, it really was this huge musical universe in which I thought I'd never get to the bottom of and with this mindset, I was discovering composers all the time. But now, 13 years later, I have found my tastes becoming more and more refined. It's almost like I have filtered out the composers that don't mean much to me anymore and the composers "left standing" so to speak are those that have resonated with me deeply and continue to do so.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Was it the Kempff GV?


Alas no, that is as far as now only as download, so the hunt starts today but perhaps it's in a big box, any my problem not yours.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

I find my musical taste broadening all the time. It has been since I was a child. Both in Classical and non classical music. Whereas there is always a "trimming-off-the-fat" if you will in certain genres and sub genres, it still overall broadens. One composer will open the door to two or three others. One new band will open me up to two or three other bands. Often, I will listen, give it a chance, and then be done with it because it's just not my bag. But even then, those new explorations may open up another door with yet more new music.

Often when it comes to classical, it's not so much composers that are new to me but rather certain pieces in genre or subgenre that is a new discovery (such as chamber music pieces). Except when it comes to 20th & 21st Century composers. I find a lot of new classical to be just naked emperors, but even then, sometimes I find some really interested things (Vasks as an example).

There is still new great music. The question always comes down to, are you willing to cut through the fat to find the good meat. Unfortunately, discovering new music is like bacon: always more fat than meat. But the reward is worth the effort IMO.

V


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

As a composer I have allowed myself stronger opinions than I would have if I wasn’t a composer myself. An artist needs to make SOME decisions on aesthetics even if they are under constant testing and re-evaluation.

The widening of my horizons might not be as quick as with many others but still my horizons are widening. My deep attitude is allowance towards all kinds of music.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Has your taste narrowed or is it narrowing?


originally, i was into mass culture stuff and, like, always felt it narrows my taste.

once i got into classical and gave up me old habits - that's where i feel my taste's broadened immensely.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Mine is definitely broadening...yesterday, I listened to Brahms' Symphony No. 2 _twice_!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I'm with those saying it's broadening and has been since I was a teenager. If anything I'm interested in way too much music and have a list a mile long of artists, bands, and composers I want to hear and not enough hours in the day to hear them all.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

My taste has narrowed from three years ago when I used to listen to Schoenberg, Xenakis, and Schnittke.

I also listened to a lot more Haydn 2-3 years ago. However, I listen to more Brahms and keyboard music than I did at that time.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Neo Romanza said:


> When I first got into classical music, it really was this huge musical universe in which I thought I'd never get to the bottom of and with this mindset, I was discovering composers all the time. But now, 13 years later, I have found my tastes becoming more and more refined. It's almost like I have filtered out the composers that don't mean much to me anymore and the composers "left standing" so to speak are those that have resonated with me deeply and continue to do so.


I would be fairly happy listening to my top 10-15 composers for the rest of my life. Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler, Bruckner, Dvorak, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, and Bartok comprise most of my listening (though that might change if I start liking opera, and since I've ordered the Brilliant Classics Handel Edition).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I find myself in a continual loop of the large category of Classical and selective portions of what that entails, Dave Matthews Band & Phish.
> 
> It's kind of nice to see some formulas developing in me, as long as I stay aware of them.


Thread title is clear but your op has confused me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Thread title is clear but your op has confused me.


At what point you are narrowing is a subjective claim, carry on.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Expanding, expanding, always expanding. Even after 50+ years of listening to music there is so much still to discover or re-appraise, in all kinds of genres.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> At what point you are narrowing is a subjective claim, carry on.


Your reference to 'Dave Matthews Band & Phish' is saying what exactly?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Your reference to 'Dave Matthews Band & Phish' is saying what exactly?


I've been listening to two rock bands and classical music lately, and considering how much variety I used to have, I think i've narrowed it down.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

It is inflecting, but not universal, widening but directional. It is good to explore music that has never been heard or liked, the process is exciting in its own right. Music in any period is a hidden treasure for aural experiences, even in philosophical terms, a solid path way to the personal enlightenment of our age.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Mine are widening - I've retired, and I have more time now for really enjoyable listening...


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

My taste has been widening as well. Maybe after some decades I discover everything I think there is to discover and my taste then begins to narrow, but now this definitely is not the case.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Neo Romanza said:


> When I first got into classical music, it really was this huge musical universe in which I thought I'd never get to the bottom of and with this mindset, I was discovering composers all the time. But now, 13 years later, I have found my tastes becoming more and more refined. It's almost like I have filtered out the composers that don't mean much to me anymore and the composers "left standing" so to speak are those that have resonated with me deeply and continue to do so.


As a new comer to classical myself, only 7 years since classical came to dominate my listening habits, I too find it to be this huge musical universe in which I simply don't have enough years left to get to the bottom of.

It is good and bad. Lots' to learn, great finds everyday. Very suffocating, stifling however knowing I'll never be as well versed as I am in other genres.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Has your taste narrowed or is it narrowing?


Depends on the perspective one takes.

In macro, I would have to say that my taste is expanding everyday as I embraced a new genre as I spoke to in my last post. 
In micro, maybe not as I have largely forsaken other genres to quench my classical thirst.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Since I began to listen to classical music, my taste has widened greatly and continues to do so. No matter how much I listen to new works and composers, there seems to be an unending list of both that I have not heard. I agree with Varick that after experiencing a significant number of works and composers, finding new interesting ones occurs less often then before. Still, I continuously hear new music that thrills me. Contemporary music is so varied that my process of discovery appears destined to continue for some time.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

In some respects broadening and in other respects narrowing. I just don't have time for the vast majority of popular music from Taylor Swift to Bob Dylan (possibly T-H-E most overrated performer of all time).


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> Bob Dylan (possibly T-H-E most overrated performer of all time).


LOL

I like this, no pretense. Just straight up trolling.

LOL


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I was being generous (and something like polite) by writing "possibly".


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> I was being generous (and something like polite) by writing "possibly".


No worries from me. I don't argue with such opinionated posts.

Be happy would be my recommendation.

Peace


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

eljr said:


> No worries from me. I don't argue with such opinionated posts.
> 
> Be happy would be my recommendation.
> 
> Peace


LOL. The accepted estimation of Dylan isn't opinionated, but calling him overrated *is*. That tells us everything we need to know. But yeah, I just state it. No point in arguing. It will take about a generation after his death for the infatuation to wear off, like it did for other composers/musicians. And it _will_ happen.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> LOL. The accepted estimation of Dylan isn't opinionated, but calling him overrated *is*. That tells us everything we need to know. But yeah, I just state it. No point in arguing. *It will take about a generation after his death for the infatuation to wear off*, like it did for other composers/musicians. And it _will_ happen.


I would expect it would as Dylan was particularly culturally relevant.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

eljr said:


> I would expect it would as Dylan was particularly culturally relevant.


Agreed. Similar to a Salieri or Hummel, he perfectly struck his generation's chord.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

My tastes continue to expand unabated, within the attributes I like in music.

Those attributes being: very high level of musicianship, complexity, deep and broad range of emotional and/or content, avoidance of verse>chorus>bridge format, avoidance of a hook.

The genres that I listen to that meet all of the above criteria are: classical (20th century, modernism, avant-garde, serial), jazz (fusion, chamber-jazz, post bop, avant-garde, M-Base), and prog (avant-prog, Zeuhl, Canterbury, classic, prog-metal).

But within those genres and subgenres, I am in a constant search of new music, and even new subgenres within them. 

I get great enjoyment from discovering a new composer, artist, band, etc.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Simon Moon said:


> The genres that I listen to that meet all of the above criteria are: classical (20th century, modernism, avant-garde, serial), jazz (fusion, chamber-jazz, post bop, avant-garde, M-Base), and prog (avant-prog, Zeuhl, Canterbury, classic, prog-metal).


That's cool. I listen to none of that. Could you recommend one representative piece from each and I'll listen.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> LOL. The accepted estimation of Dylan isn't opinionated, but calling him overrated *is*. That tells us everything we need to know. But yeah, I just state it. No point in arguing. *It will take about a generation after his death for the infatuation to wear off, like it did for other composers/musicians. And it will happen.*


I don't know how old you are or I'd be willing to take that bet. I'm sure the only musician to ever win a Nobel and feature as one of only 5 musicians on Time's 100 most influential people of the 20th century will be forgotten so shortly. Yeah, that doesn't sound unlikely at all.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't know how old you are or I'd be willing to take that bet. I'm sure the only musician to ever win a Nobel and feature as one of only 5 musicians on Time's 100 most influential people of the 20th century will be forgotten so shortly. Yeah, that doesn't sound unlikely at all.


Among my (22) generation, his music hasn't aged as well as many of his contemporaries' (the Beatles, the Stones), or even some of his predecessors' (Sinatra, Elvis). I don't know about forgotten, but he does have more of a "boomer" vibe to him than you might think.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Among my (22) generation, his music hasn't aged as well as many of his contemporaries' (the Beatles, the Stones), or even some of his predecessors' (Sinatra, Elvis). I don't know about forgotten, but he does have more of a "boomer" vibe to him than you might think.


I know many your age who completely disagree with you. I'm only 36 so Dylan's heyday was well before my time as well. Obviously as time goes on less and less people will listen to him, as is the case with ALL music (and art) that was once popular. Young generations often have the tendency to dismiss or ignore all art before their time, and I'm sure there are many young people who feel the same way about The Beatles, Stones, Sinatra, and Elvis.

Personally, I think it's aged better than most of his contemporaries in large part because Dylan always sounded very outside of time, very archetypally ancient. His music constantly echoes with the folk music of artists many generations before him, whereas The Beatles and The Stones sound of their time because they were (in large part) defining the popular styles and sounds of that time and had many imitators who had their own success. Despite his influence, not many artists sounded like Dylan after him, and the whole singer-songwriter genre, in general, is one that sounds rather timeless because it was less dressed up in styles particular to that time. I get no "boomer" vibe from Dylan, whatever that's supposed to mean anyway.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

My taste has narrowed but I listen to early and new-ish music on the regular.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I know many your age who completely disagree with you.


Just out of curiosity I Googled the topic and came across a Quora description of an audience emptying out during an impromptu(?) Dylan concert appearance-largely disinterested in Dylan or his songs (apart from his "greatest hits"). As with your claim to knowing "many your age", it's anecdotal, but I take that as more indicative of Dylan's long-term appeal and reputation. He was of an age.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> Just out of curiosity I Googled the topic and came across a Quora description of an audience emptying out during an impromptu(?) Dylan concert appearance-largely disinterested in Dylan or his songs (apart from his "greatest hits"). As with your claim to knowing "many your age", it's anecdotal, but I take that as more indicative of Dylan's long-term appeal and reputation. He was of an age.


The post I responded to was anecdotal; my claim was anecdotal; and so is yours. So currently we have dueling anecdotes and no real evidence to decide between them. What now? Well, considering you're the one who made the initial claim it would seem the burden is mostly on you. Here's all I'd say: if any popular 20th century music has a chance of lasting I'm putting my money on The Beatles and the only musician to win a Nobel and be on Time's 100 most important people of the century list. It would seem foolish to put your money on anything else. It should also be noted that Dylan's recent albums (including his bootleg material) are still getting glowing reviews from music critics, and not just old critics either. He had a song from his last album top the Billboard charts and the album it was from had a 95/100 rating from MetaCritic, which was the second highest rated album of that year behind only Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Yeah, really seems like things you'd expect from a washed up artist who was of their time.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I know many your age who completely disagree with you. I'm only 36 so Dylan's heyday was well before my time as well. Obviously as time goes on less and less people will listen to him, as is the case with ALL music (and art) that was once popular. Young generations often have the tendency to dismiss or ignore all art before their time, and I'm sure there are many young people who feel the same way about The Beatles, Stones, Sinatra, and Elvis.
> 
> Personally, I think it's aged better than most of his contemporaries in large part because Dylan always sounded very outside of time, very archetypally ancient. His music constantly echoes with the folk music of artists many generations before him, whereas The Beatles and The Stones sound of their time because they were (in large part) defining the popular styles and sounds of that time and had many imitators who had their own success. Despite his influence, not many artists sounded like Dylan after him, and the whole singer-songwriter genre, in general, is one that sounds rather timeless because it was less dressed up in styles particular to that time. I get no "boomer" vibe from Dylan, whatever that's supposed to mean anyway.


First I should say that my post represents a summary of the views of people (especially music enthusiasts) I know, not necessarily my personal opinions of Dylan. Of course my perspective on this is narrow and biased as is everyone's. I haven't bothered to look into the statistics too much, so I should have qualified my previous post.

Maybe it's his singer-songwriter style of music in general that's gone out of fashion. I don't exactly know. But older pop and rock bands seem to be significantly more in vogue than musicians like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm putting my money on The Beatles and the only musician to win a Nobel and be on Time's 100 most important people of the century list.


How many other Nobel prize winners can you name? And how many of Time's 100 most important people? Yeah, I didn't think so. Those awards only confirm that he and/or anyone else who has won prizes in their lifetime were, as I've already written, well rewarded by their own generation. As history has shown again and again, such awards are meaningless in the long term. How many composers besides Mozart won admittance to the coveted Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur? Can you name one? I mean, I just can't express how utterly meaningless these and any awards are as regards an artist's longevity.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> It should also be noted that Dylan's recent albums (including his bootleg material) are still getting glowing reviews from music critics, and not just old critics either. He had a song from his last album top the Billboard charts and the album it was from had a 95/100 rating from MetaCritic, which was the second highest rated album of that year behind only Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Yeah, really seems like things you'd expect from a washed up artist who was of their time.


That doesn't surprise me at all. This is exactly the kind of reception a stratospherically overrated artist would receive. As we both concede, I think, there's no conclusion to this debate but time. My prediction is that 25 years after his death Dylan's popularity and estimation will have diminished _considerably_.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> First I should say that my post represents a summary of the views of people (especially music enthusiasts) I know, not necessarily my personal opinions of Dylan. Of course my perspective on this is narrow and biased as is everyone's. I haven't bothered to look into the statistics too much, so I should have qualified my previous post.
> 
> Maybe it's his singer-songwriter style of music in general that's gone out of fashion. I don't exactly know. But older pop and rock bands seem to be significantly more in vogue than musicians like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell.


Right, just as my post is a summary of the views of the people/music enthusiasts I know. This just tells me we know different people/music enthusiasts!

Actually, I feel like the singer-songwriter style is much more popular today than rock music. I seriously can't name any rock band that's an integral part of the landscape of modern popular music the way The Beatles were in their time, but I can name plenty of types of who fall into the singer-songwriter mold from Ed Sheeran to Taylor Swift. Swift's last two albums even saw her dabbling with indie-folk, which isn't all that distant from the kind of the music Dylan started out playing. This: 




sounds closer (in spirit) to Dylan than any modern popular music I can think of sounds close to The Beatles, Stones, or similar.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Right, just as my post is a summary of the views of the people/music enthusiasts I know. This just tells me we know different people/music enthusiasts!
> 
> Actually, I feel like the singer-songwriter style is much more popular today than rock music. I seriously can't name any rock band that's an integral part of the landscape of modern popular music the way The Beatles were in their time, but I can name plenty of types of who fall into the singer-songwriter mold from Ed Sheeran to Taylor Swift. Swift's last two albums even saw her dabbling with indie-folk, which isn't all that distant from the kind of the music Dylan started out playing. This:
> 
> ...


I'm inclined to agree with your last statement, but I do wonder whether the apparent similarities between the contemporary "indie" movement and older folk music are more analogous than homologous, so to speak.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> How many other Nobel prize winners can you name? And how many of Time's 100 most important people? Yeah, I didn't think so.


I recognize almost every single name on that Time 100 list (minus some obscure inventors and such) and I imagine most reasonably well-educated people would. Nobel prize winners are almost always well-known within their fields; their fields are not always massively popular with the public the way music is, however. The point isn't that such rewards guarantee longevity, merely that if we're betting on longevity they're as good an indicator as anything else would be.



vtpoet said:


> That doesn't surprise me at all. This is exactly the kind of reception a stratospherically overrated artist would receive. As we both concede, I think, there's no conclusion to this debate but time. My prediction is that 25 years after his death Dylan's popularity and estimation will have diminished _considerably_.


It's also the kind of reception one of the greatest artists of all time would receive. You're essentially making the Life of Brian Messiah argument here, only you're not doing it as a joke. I have no doubt Dylan's popularity will decline, as that happens with all popular art (without exception). The reputation's decline is where our disagreement is, and I'd be willing to wager if I thought there was any chance we'd both still be around in 25 years to discuss the issue... and find some objective way to settle the issue (which I'm not even sure what that would look like).


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I'm inclined to agree with your last statement, but I do wonder whether the apparent similarities between the contemporary "indie" movement and older folk music are more analogous than homologous, so to speak.


I'm not sure what the distinction between analogous and homologous would be in your mind. Indie folk is very much influenced by classic folk music and its pared down aesthetic that made acoustic instruments a primary focus, but is merely willing to incorporate other modern influences and sounds/instrumentation as well.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I have no doubt Dylan's popularity will decline,


it isn't about him and his likes being popular or not but that they never wrote music and could not sing.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

art is not about being popular, its about high quality and creating masterpieces.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

sharik said:


> art is not about being popular, its about high quality and creating masterpieces.


...and recognition...and making a living...


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

sharik said:


> art is not about being popular, its about high quality and creating masterpieces.


is it?

I though it was about stirring emotion within us.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

sharik said:


> it isn't about him and his likes being popular or not but that they never wrote music and could not sing.


That's a bold claim. Maybe you'd care to offer an actual argument rather than just presenting a rather an obvious opinion as if it was an indisputable fact.



sharik said:


> art is not about being popular, its about high quality and creating masterpieces.


And who determines what counts as high quality masterpieces?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

vtpoet said:


> That's cool. I listen to none of that. Could you recommend one representative piece from each and I'll listen.


A word of caution. The music Simon and I love requires a level of attention, and a history of exposure to different types of music. If you dive right into the deep end without any context, you might find yourself lost without any landmarks.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Forster said:


> ...and recognition...and making a living...


yes, recognition from elites, and the privileges coming with it...


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

eljr said:


> is it? I though it was about stirring emotion within us.


well, emotions can be stirred many other ways, no art necessary...

so - no, its not about caring much about spectators, listeners and readers.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I wouldn't say my taste has narrowed. Plateaued is more apt.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

sharik said:


> well, emotions can be stirred many other ways, no art necessary...


because emotion can be stirred by other than art, art cannot stir emotion? Is that your contention?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not sure what the distinction between analogous and homologous would be in your mind. *Indie folk is very much influenced by classic folk music* and its pared down aesthetic that made acoustic instruments a primary focus, but is merely willing to incorporate other modern influences and sounds/instrumentation as well.


I will take your word for it.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

vtpoet said:


> How many other Nobel prize winners can you name? And how many of Time's 100 most important people? Yeah, I didn't think so. Those awards only confirm that he and/or anyone else who has won prizes in their lifetime were, as I've already written, well rewarded by their own generation. As history has shown again and again, such awards are meaningless in the long term. How many composers besides Mozart won admittance to the coveted Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur? Can you name one? I mean, I just can't express how utterly meaningless these and any awards are as regards an artist's longevity.
> 
> That doesn't surprise me at all. This is exactly the kind of reception a stratospherically overrated artist would receive. As we both concede, I think, there's no conclusion to this debate but time. My prediction is that 25 years after his death Dylan's popularity and estimation will have diminished _considerably_.


I agree - Dylan will be forgotten once he and the young of the 60s are dead and buried.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

My taste has pretty much been the same all along. Early on it was predominantly classical and jazz, but also the rock and pop music of my youth, the 80's. 

I was an old soul from the start, and have over the years been increasingly drawn to a variety of older popular music and also a bit of R&B and Soul. 

I've had a lot of fallow periods, also times I vigorously culled my CD collection. I've found clearing the decks refreshing, even though there has been music I ended up buying again.

If I counted the years where discovering music was at its most intense, it would add up to about 12 years. With regards to classical, that includes the years when my attendance of live concerts hit a peak too.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

eljr said:


> because emotion can be stirred by other than art, art cannot stir emotion?


anything can... art is no exclusion here, but its main point is to convey *information*; so emotions it elicits are not same with mass-culture's which cater to the bad taste of the masses... art deals with narratives, meanings, realistic images and *ideals*; these provide listeners and onlookers *inspiration*, whereas how emotional an experience this might be is a moot question.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I never had taste in the first place....


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

sharik said:


> anything can... art is no exclusion here, but its main point is to convey *information*; so emotions it elicits are not same with mass-culture's which cater to the bad taste of the masses... art deals with narratives, meanings, realistic images and *ideals*; these provide listeners and onlookers *inspiration*, whereas how emotional an experience this might be is a moot question.


Art _can be _anything that the artist wants it to be. It's not for you or me to prescribe what the artist must make, or what effect it has on its audience.

What art _is_, however, is reasonable to attempt to define.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

It's perhaps possible that the Dylan naysayers are focusing on and criticizing his harmony / melody, whilst fans are speaking of his lyrics? If complex harmony and organic motivic development is your thing, then Dylan might not be for you.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

janxharris said:


> It's perhaps possible that the Dylan naysayers are focusing on and criticizing his harmony / melody, whilst fans are speaking of his lyrics? If complex harmony and organic motivic development is your thing, then Dylan might not be for you.


Personally I'm speaking of his mastery of songwriting as a hybrid art-form, one in which music and lyrics are of equal importance. Dylan's music is by no means complex on its own, but it's extremely effective in communicating his lyrics in a meaningful way. I've spoken before about when studying poetry one of my assignments was to write an essay on the difference between reading lyrics on a page VS listening to them in a song. I did this for Dylan's Most of the Time and that was an eye-opening experience. I do not begrudge anyone who places more value on music--I used to do this too--and finds Dylan lacking on that front, but really listening to Dylan and exploring his discography taught me a lot about the artistic potentialities of songwriting as an art-form when the music and lyrics play an equally important role. What's funny is that I often find myself defending Dylan against both music-lovers and poets; he's not "pure" enough for either.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Forster said:


> It's not for you or me to prescribe what the artist must make,


not a prescription but a mere *observation* of the facts at hand, this is what i just imparted.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

sharik said:


> not a prescription but a mere *observation* of the facts at hand, this is what i just imparted.


"art is not about being popular, its about high quality and creating masterpieces"

That sounds like prescription to me. Of course, if your purpose is to "observe" that only that which _you _determine is a masterpiece is art and the rest is...(whatever)...then we're on the same page.  That which I determine is a masterpiece is also art...but it may not be the same as your art.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

My taste has developed a bit , yet there are a few composers I can't get my head round even after trying so many times. I discovered a few composers thanks to TC and it has broadened my taste. I've listened to the composer called Schnittke  the last few evenings and I came to the conclusion that I would never have listened to his music a decade or so ago , I mean I wouldn't have given him a chance.
I've known some of his work for a few years now and it has grown on me!

I'm open to a lot of new work and I find it interesting to try out and give "new compositions" a chance...but I still think your taste is your taste, you can develop but change it completely is not possible imho


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

well. I find myself extremely satisficed with the compositions that I used to listen to. but I'm open to new compositions though


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Truly, he's the model for all of us:


Couchie said:


> No I enjoy lots of music. It's easy actually. Anything before Wagner that I like I say, "ah, this inspired Wagner". And anything afterwards I enjoy I say, "ah, Wagner's influence". Explains everything really.





Couchie said:


> I only listen to Wagner. I think adventurous wide-variety listening is overrated. It's the equivalent of being a musical slag afraid of making a commitment. I hope you all someday find "the one" to end your perpetual string of meaningless one-night stands with composers. In the meantime, use protection.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

sharik said:


> *its main point is to convey information*; so emotions it elicits are not same with mass-culture's which cater to the bad taste of the masses... art deals with narratives, meanings, realistic images and *ideals*; these provide listeners and onlookers *inspiration*, whereas how emotional an experience this might be is a moot question.


*It is? I never got that memo. * My memo said art was something that has been created with imagination and skill, that is beautiful, or that expresses important ideas, feelings, or concepts. I never heard someone claim art to be the forerunner of the computer.

All art has both a universal and personal meaning.

Moot point?

I feel like we are from two inverse universes.

bad taste of the masses? Maybe it is you who has the bad taste.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I've spoken before about when studying poetry one of my assignments was to write an essay on the difference between reading lyrics on a page VS listening to them in a song. I did this for Dylan's Most of the Time and that was an eye-opening experience. I do not begrudge anyone who places more value on music--I used to do this too--and finds Dylan lacking on that front, but really listening to Dylan and exploring his discography taught me a lot about the artistic potentialities of songwriting as an art-form when the music and lyrics play an equally important role. What's funny is that I often find myself defending Dylan against both music-lovers and poets; he's not "pure" enough for either.


I've studied and written about poetry all my life and am a poet.

Dylan is no poet and awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature was an act of pure, unalloyed, pornographic sycophancy. Take the music from his "poems" and they are juvenile and amateurish productions-at best. He's a fantastic songwriter though, and that's something very different from a poet. They're two very different skills and I write that as someone who has also studied composition at the conservatory level. Reminds me of any number of composers (like Telemann, Händel or Bach) who could take crap libretti and make them feel like soaring masterpieces because they had that knack for giving considerable weight to words and their meaning though harmony and melody The Beatles possessed this gift. In my experience though, the vast majority of people know crap about poetry and also know crap about music theory (and certainly the Nobel Prize Committee knew crap about poetry and music theory); and thought that because a given song lyric was well-harmonized, that must mean, ipso facto, that the song-lyric was a literary masterpiece. SMH... You're right that the music and lyrics are of equal importance. Dylan clearly has a gift for writing lyrics to music, but that's about as far as it goes. I don't think that's going to be enough to number him among the greats. But he'll always have his devoted fans who consider him a 20th century genius, while his estimation goes the way of Elvis.


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## ansfelden (Jan 11, 2022)

i think my taste is neither narrowing nor widening - it has always been wide, the sheer quantity of music old and new makes it impossible to define. i am always exploring and discovering new music in and outside the "classical" world for over 25 years.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Forster said:


> Art _can be _anything that the artist wants it to be.


Unfortunately for such "artists", food can't be anything they want it to be, so not really. That or they're independently wealthy, have insinuated their way into the grant-giving good-ole boy network, or suck at the teat of an educational institution where acceptance by the general public doesn't matter. Then they can go around parading themselves: Ich bin ein großer Künstler!


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Unfortunately for such "artists", food can't be anything they want it to be, so not really. That or they're independently wealthy, have insinuated their way into the grant-giving good-ole boy network, or suck at the teat of an educational institution where acceptance by the general public doesn't matter. Then they can go around parading themselves: Ich bin ein großer Künstler!


I think you missed my earlier post #51 where I pointed out the need to make a living.

But actually, all I was doing was rebutting sharik's strictures. Art can be about anything the artist wants it to be, aside from the fact that the artist might wish to do things that they can't do for reasons of, say, economics or logistics.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Forster said:


> I think you missed my earlier post #51 where I pointed out the need to make a living.
> 
> But actually, all I was doing was rebutting sharik's strictures. Art can be about anything the artist wants it to be, aside from the fact that the artist might wish to do things that they can't do for reasons of, say, economics or logistics.


Yeah, sorry if my comment sounded that way. I was just riffing.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> Yeah, sorry if my comment sounded that way. I was just riffing.


Something we have become accustomed to. (Said with affection :angel


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> I've studied and written about poetry all my life and am a poet.
> 
> Dylan is no poet and awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature was an act of pure, unalloyed, pornographic sycophancy. Take the music from his "poems" and they are juvenile and amateurish productions-at best. He's a fantastic songwriter though, and that's something very different from a poet. They're two very different skills and I write that as someone who has also studied composition at the conservatory level. Reminds me of any number of composers (like Telemann, Händel or Bach) who could take crap libretti and make them feel like soaring masterpieces because they had that knack for giving considerable weight to words and their meaning though harmony and melody The Beatles possessed this gift. In my experience though, the vast majority of people know crap about poetry and also know crap about music theory (and certainly the Nobel Prize Committee knew crap about poetry and music theory); and thought that because a given song lyric was well-harmonized, that must mean, ipso facto, that the song-lyric was a literary masterpiece. SMH... You're right that the music and lyrics are of equal importance. Dylan clearly has a gift for writing lyrics to music, but that's about as far as it goes. I don't think that's going to be enough to number him among the greats. But he'll always have his devoted fans who consider him a 20th century genius, while his estimation goes the way of Elvis.


It's strange... I feel like you're half-completely-agreeing with me and half-completely-disagreeing with me. At the very least we seem to agree about Dylan's gift as a songwriter. If anything you even go further in comparing him to the likes of Handel and Bach... yet then somehow manage to say this isn't enough to number him among the greats, or even enough to warrant him being remembered for long after his death. Not sure what to make of that.

As for the Dylan-the-poet, I think we'd only disagree there by degrees. Certainly if all we had from Dylan was his lyrics I don't believe he'd be numbered among the great poets by very many people. However, I do not go as far as you do and say his writings are juvenile and amateurish. It's certainly true that Dylan isn't much of a craftsmen in terms of things like form, meter, and rhyme (and he has that in common with many of his influences like Ginsberg and, a favorite of mine, William Blake); but what he lacks in poetic craft he frequently makes up for his evocative imagery, deep well of equally evocative allusions and references, and thematic concerns. It's certainly deep enough to have warranted an analysis from arguably the greatest living poetry critic in Christopher Ricks, who I'd wager has forgotten more about poetry than either of us know. In terms of the the latter-half of the 20th century I don't rank Dylan with the likes of Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, James Merrill, or John Ashbery... but I'd take him over a great many other critically acclaimed poets as well.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

vtpoet said:


> I've studied and written about poetry all my life and am a poet.
> 
> Dylan is no poet and awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature was an act of pure, unalloyed, pornographic sycophancy. Take the music from his "poems" and they are juvenile and amateurish productions-at best. He's a fantastic songwriter though, and that's something very different from a poet. They're two very different skills and I write that as someone who has also studied composition at the conservatory level. Reminds me of any number of composers (like Telemann, Händel or Bach) who could take crap libretti and make them feel like soaring masterpieces because they had that knack for giving considerable weight to words and their meaning though harmony and melody The Beatles possessed this gift. In my experience though, the vast majority of people know crap about poetry and also know crap about music theory (and certainly the Nobel Prize Committee knew crap about poetry and music theory); and thought that because a given song lyric was well-harmonized, that must mean, ipso facto, that the song-lyric was a literary masterpiece. SMH... You're right that the music and lyrics are of equal importance. Dylan clearly has a gift for writing lyrics to music, but that's about as far as it goes. I don't think that's going to be enough to number him among the greats. But he'll always have his devoted fans who consider him a 20th century genius, while his estimation goes the way of Elvis.


The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Dylan's lyrics without music are usually cringe worthy.
His music without lyrics is monotonous and boring.

When you put the two together, that's where the magic happens

I don't think it's sensible or fair to separate the lyrics from the music, the same way I don't think it's sensible or fair to separate counterpoint and harmony in a Bach fugue. The two go hand in hand and must be considered in the context of one another.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Likewise, I think people trying to criticize Wagner's librettos are often missing the point. The librettos aren't complete works of art, they're settings for the music. And the music is an elaboration of the libretto. You shouldn't interpret the story of _The Ring_ the same way you'd interpret the plot of a novel or a movie.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Since we're talking poetry and the relationship between lyrics/librettos and music, one of our genuinely great 20th century poets, WH Auden, actually had a brief career writing opera librettos. His first librettos are very... florid, very poetic. They aren't among his masterpieces, but they are much better written on the page than most librettos are. By the time we get to The Rake's Progress--one of his last, if not his last, libretto--he's pared things down considerably. The language is simple, very direct, with very little of his typical imagery or figurative language. Why? Well, Auden explained it this way. He said (paraphrased) that with those early librettos the words got lost in the music, and the music lost some of their potency because of that. Essentially, the complexity of the language and the complexity of the music were competing for attention, and it was too much. That made him realize that operas requires librettos that were simpler, less expressive, more general and abstract, so that the music could do all of the "coloring" in terms of emotional meaning and substance that was lacking on the page. 

I imagine much the same is true of song lyrics. You don't want lyrics in which the content is so expressive that there's nothing left for the music to do except play a supporting role. This is one issue I have with even the masterpiece of classical lieder (like Schubert's) that used very rich texts like Goethe; the complexity of the texts frequently seems to be competing with the music for attention. Schubert overcomes this with his genius, often in knowing when to pull back and let the lyrics do most of the work, and when and how to allow the music to add more than what's there on the page... but I suspect for people like Bob Dylan a huge part of the art is writing in a way that offers the most freedom to color the meaning through the music, and he takes advantage of this by liberally changing up arrangements for his songs, often completely changing the tone and meaning from the version that makes it onto the official studio albums. This is one reason his live albums and bootlegs are so worthwhile, because they often present completely different versions of his songs that are interesting in isolation but even more fascinating when compared against their originals. I don't think that works as well with lyrics that are so expressive you're almost tied down to certain tones and emotions in expressing them.


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## AndorFoldes (Aug 25, 2012)

The boomers seem to think that the pop music of their youth has some kind of quality that makes it really special. Why pop songs written and recorded in the 1960s and 1970s would have some kind of extraordinary value is a mystery to me. I also like the pop music I grew up with, but I don't tell people that it's some of the greatest music ever written.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's strange... I feel like you're half-completely-agreeing with me and half-completely-disagreeing with me. At the very least we seem to agree about Dylan's gift as a songwriter. If anything you even go further in comparing him to the likes of Handel and Bach...


The topic reminds me of Händel and Bach, not Dylan's accomplishments. Just to clear that up.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Not sure what to make of that.


My own lack of clarity.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> As for the Dylan-the-poet, I think we'd only disagree there by degrees. Certainly if all we had from Dylan was his lyrics I don't believe he'd be numbered among the great poets by very many people. However, I do not go as far as you do and say his writings are juvenile and amateurish.


I just picked this out at random:

Life Is Hard (excerpt, google for full lyrics)

_The evening winds are still
I've lost the way and will
Can't tell you where they went
I just know what they meant

I'm always on my guard
Admitting life is hard
Without you near me

The friend you used to be
So near and dear to me
You slipped so far away
Where did we go astray?_

As a "poem", it's juvenile and amatuerish. The meter is hamfisted. It's one cliché after another: "I'm always on my guard", "life is hard"; "So near and dear to me" [greeting card verse]; "You slipped so far away, Where did we go astray?", cliché and cliché; "admitting life is hard" [and there it is again because it was so original the first time]; "I felt that emptiness so wide" [juvenile writing]; "I just know I need strength to fight" [cliché].

I could do this with every lyric he's written. That's not to say that he doesn't have moments of originality, but it's the exception, not the rule.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's certainly true that Dylan isn't much of a craftsmen in terms of things like form, meter, and rhyme (and he has that in common with many of his influences like Ginsberg and, a favorite of mine, William Blake); but what he lacks in poetic craft he frequently makes up for his evocative imagery, deep well of equally evocative allusions and references, and thematic concerns.


Yeah. Okay. Show me some.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's certainly deep enough to have warranted an analysis from arguably the greatest living poetry critic in Christopher Ricks, who I'd wager has forgotten more about poetry than either of us know.


Christopher Ricks is a knowledgeable critic but he doesn't know more about poetry than I do. In some areas, yes, and in other areas, no; as in all things we have our specialties. I _can_ tell you that I'm far more read online than Mr Ricks is, and around the world. In every other respect, I try to show some humility, but I ent gonna be name-dropped into silence by Ricks. I've read portions of Ricks book on Dylan's lyrics and it's embarrassingly fatuous. At no point does Ricks actually make an argument for why he thinks Dylan is "the greatest living user of the English language". He just babbles on like a stricken fanboy comparing Dylan to famous poets (Marlowe, Keats, Shakespeare, etc...) as if the same couldn't be done for any lyricist. That Dylan's lyric reminds Ricks of something Shakespeare or Marlowe wrote doesn't make Dylan _like_ Shakespeare or Marlowe. If that's all it took, every half-wit lyricist would be a genius.

A reviewer elsewhere summed it up nicely:

"Too much dissecting of lines and words, too little analysis of overall worth and standing. The author seems to want us to presume he wouldn't be wasting time if Dylan's work wasn't worth it so he doesn't bother to make any kind of case for Dylan as a poet in an age when poetry has a landscape that needs to be defined before it's populated. In the end, despite moments of fun and insight as he relentlessly wobbles from song to song (trees, trees, and no forest), you're left with mixed up confusion written at a high level of allusion and a low level of interest."

The problem with Ricks is that he doesn't know the difference between good poetry and bad poetry, but he's good at extemporizing on both. When he extemporizes on good poetry, the good poetry burnishes his shoes, but when he goes running off with the bad poetry, he comes home with the clap.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

AndorFoldes said:


> The* boomers seem to think that the pop music of their youth has some kind of quality that makes it really special.* Why pop songs written and recorded in the 1960s and 1970s would have some kind of extraordinary value is a mystery to me. I also like the pop music I grew up with, but I don't tell people that it's some of the greatest music ever written.


I am a boomer and felt the same for a while. Eventually I matured and realized how silly it was to think that. I simply could not make an objective case to support the greatness of 60s/70's pop/rock.

Still, on other forms, this belief is so firm, nothing will pry it from their belief system. I have had countless conflicts defending different genres and eras. Pointless, they won't be shook.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> I just picked this out at random:
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


If I read this poem in isolation I might agree with you; reading in the context of Dylan's other work can't help but color my opinion though, and makes this particular poem feel very intentionally childlike in its simplicity--not terribly dissimilar to the style of much of Robert Burns's simpler lyrics, many of which were also written for songs. A point I'd make about the meter is one that's been noted in discussing the rough (to put it mildly) meter of the poetry of John Donne, and that's that when poetry is written for music there's much more metrical freedom considering how a vocalist can easily constrict or elongate syllables (or strings of syllables) to make the lyrics work with the musical meter. They aren't relying on the text itself to dictate the meter as it would be experienced when read.

As for "showing you one," here's a much better example of Dylan-as-poet: The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest

In one sense this song echoes strongly with the tradition of folk song storytelling and classic allegories/parables; but it also feels like some kind of strange, elusive, fever dream. The kind of thing that makes sense in the twilight between awake and sleep, when we glimpse its meaning through intuitions; but when we stare it wide awake it makes less sense, vaguely similar to koans, or other poetry that's meant to provoke our intuitions and frustrate our conscious understanding. Yet this is almost in direct opposition to the purpose of most allegories and parables where the meaning is supposed to be transparent through and highlighted by the metaphoric layering rather than obscured. I also find it remarkable given the fact that it ends with a summary "moral," it doesn't explicate much, and actually seems rather detached from the story that just came before. "Nothing is revealed" indeed. Again, formally there's not much to admire here. It has the same defects in meter that you can find throughout most of Dylan, and unlike Keats' dictum to "load every rift with ore," Dylan is content to add a lot of "unnecessary" words that do, however, manage to add to the homespun, folky nature of the the style.

I dare say this was indeed fairly original in 1968. At least, I can't think of any poets of that time or beforehand writing anything quite like this. The modern and postmodern traditions, as well as more local trends like confessionalism, couldn't be farther away from this, which, like so much of Dylan, seems archetypally ancient. Probably the closest recent predecessor would've been someone like Robert Frost. The difference between Frost and Dylan (besides Frost's far superior technique) is that Frost was so conscious of his meanings he was rarely (if ever) content with being evocative and intuitive, so either his allegories/parables were transparent, or he WAS inclined to spell out the meaning explicitly. An example of the latter would be a poem like Maple, which I think is a wonderful narrative poem up until the final paragraph, where Frost inexplicably felt the need to say everything explicitly he'd already said much better through the story itself and ruin the thing.



vtpoet said:


> Christopher Ricks is a knowledgeable critic but he doesn't know more about poetry than I do. In some areas, yes, and in other areas, no; as in all things we have our specialties. I _can_ tell you that I'm far more read online than Mr Ricks is, and around the world. In every other respect, I try to show some humility, but I ent gonna be name-dropped into silence by Ricks. I've read portions of Ricks book on Dylan's lyrics and it's embarrassingly fatuous. At no point does Ricks actually make an argument for why he thinks Dylan is "the greatest living user of the English language". He just babbles on like a stricken fanboy comparing Dylan to famous poets (Marlowe, Keats, Shakespeare, etc...) as if the same couldn't be done for any lyricist. That Dylan's lyric reminds Ricks of something Shakespeare or Marlowe wrote doesn't make Dylan _like_ Shakespeare or Marlowe. If that's all it took, every half-wit lyricist would be a genius.
> 
> A reviewer elsewhere summed it up nicely:
> 
> ...


If you're claiming you're more read as a critic than Ricks then I'd be impressed. Maybe you've had poets as good as Hill and Auden praising your critical intelligence, or other critics as good as John Carey calling you the greatest living critic? Anyway, my point wasn't to "name drop you into silence," my point was that there are eminent critics of poetry out there who vehemently disagree with you about Dylan, so you citing your credentials isn't terribly impressive when there are equally well-credentialed folk who disagree; and it's even less impressive knowing that the entire subject boils down to the classic "de gustibus non disputandum est."

Your opinion of Ricks's book on Dylan is no different than your opinion on Dylan: ultimately it's just an opinion, one wholly dependent on your subjective preferences, values, and biases. While I certainly wouldn't agree that Dylan is the greatest living user of the English language, I do think comparing him with the greatest poets of the English language is a perfectly valid way to go about arguing that; not the ONLY valid method, but one of them. Further, "dissecting lines and words" is yet another valid way to go about arguing "worth and standing." Both you and that reviewer seem upset that Ricks isn't arguing the way you want him to, or perhaps focusing on what you find valuable in poetry in general.

How nice it must be to have the authority to say that one of world's most eminent poetry critics doesn't know the difference between good and bad poetry, but apparently you do. Please tell me what it's like to have that kind of power to so "humbly" dismiss others' opinions that disagree with yours!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

eljr said:


> I am a boomer and felt the same for a while. Eventually I matured and realized how silly it was to think that. I simply could not make an objective case to support the greatness of 60s/70's pop/rock.
> 
> Still, on other forms, this belief is so firm, nothing will pry it from their belief system. I have had countless conflicts defending different genres and eras. Pointless, they won't be shook.


Not a boomer here and I think there's lots of greatness in 60s/70s pop/rock, and 50s, and 80s, and 90s, and 10s...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

A reminder that lyrics are copyrighted and posting more than an excerpt in a post here is not allowed. I have edited some posts.

Please read: Copyright Issues


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> A reminder that lyrics are copyrighted and posting more than an excerpt in a post here is not allowed. I have edited some posts.


Would it be better to post a link to, eg, Bob Dylan's website where the lyrics are?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Yes, that would be fine.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

^ Done (and here are more words to meet the post limit).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If I read this poem in isolation I might agree with you; reading in the context of Dylan's other work can't help but color my opinion though, and makes this particular poem feel very intentionally childlike in its simplicity


Yeah, okay, I see where this is headed. It's the fallacy of imitative form. If it's "childlike" and "simplistic" it's only because he was such a towering genius that he _meant_ it to be juvenile (read childlike) and clichéd (read simplistic). Against that kind of fanboism there's no arguing.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> As for "showing you one," here's a much better example of Dylan-as-poet:


The "poem", if that's how we're judging it, is hardly a work of literature. It's nice enough but it's not poetry. Something like this:

"While the mission bells did toll
He just stood there staring
At that big house as bright as any sun"

With the auxiliary do form-"did" toll" - is the sure mark of a rank amateur in another context. The two lines that follow are ham-fisted and clichéd, even in their own day. "Burst upon the scene" is a trite expression and who says "upon the scene" instead of "on the scene"? Only an amateur trying to fill the meter. There's no originality in metaphor or symbolism. They're all pat and well-worn. And this:

"But on the seventeenth he burst
Into the arms of Judas Priest
Which is where he died of thirst"

Where the final line of the stanza feels like a tacked on afterthought along with its hasty rhyme. Makes me laugh when I read it. My god but it's awful poetry. But here's the thing, he wasn't writing poetry. He was writing song lyrics. As song lyrics, it's great - not genius-great but great. Put it to the right tune, as Dylan does, and listen to the magic happen. But this is not literature. As others have pointed out, its versification in the service of music.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I dare say this was indeed fairly original in 1968. At least, I can't think of any poets of that time or beforehand writing anything quite like this.


What? In terms of poetry? Good God, no. There's nothing original about it. Poets had been telling folksy stories in this vein for hundreds of years. This is a poor shadow of poetry already written by far better poets.

Here's a translated poem by Johann Peter Hebel.

I whittled at a stick one day,-
'Twas just to pass the time away:
A little girl came tripping by,
With rosy look and witching eye.

With artless smile and simple grace,
She looked me sweetly in my face,
And said, 'The knife is sharp, I ween -
Another thing will cut as keen.'

And then she laughed, and said, 'Good day,'
And like a dream had flown away;
The voice, the look, was with me still,
When all at once I felt me ill.

I could not work, I could not play;
I saw and heard her all the day.
That witching eye was sharp, I ween;
O, that was what would cut so keen.

I saw and heard her day and night, -
Her voice so soft, here eye so bright:
When others lay in slumber sweet,
I heard the clock each hour repeat

I could not stay and linger so:
Like one entranced, away I go;
Through field and forest, far and wide,
I seek if there the witch doth hide.

By bush and brake, by rock and hill,
Where'er I go, I see her still:
The little girl, with witching eye
Is ever, ever tripping by.

Through town and village, too, I stray;
At every house I call and say,
'O, can you tell me where to find
The little girl that witched my mind?'

I've sought her many a weary mile;
Methought I saw her all the while:
Ah! if I can't the witch obtain,
I never shall be well again.

[Public Domain]

Or read "Dead Man's Hate" by Robert E. Howard [also public domain]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dead_Man's_Hate

There are some great lines in both these poems, but comparing them to Dylan's song-lyrics isn't something I would do. It's others that insist on it and Dylan's accomplishments, such as they are, are considerably diminished because of it.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> If you're claiming you're more read as a critic than Ricks then I'd be impressed.


Online? Yes, I am. Hands down. As far as "in print" goes, Ricks wins hands down. I suppose I could have pursued a career like Ricks's, but I never wanted that life.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> so you citing your credentials isn't terribly impressive when there are equally well-credentialed folk who disagree...


And that lands us back to my earlier comment that only time will settle the matter of Dylan's legacy.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> How nice it must be to have the authority to say that one of world's most eminent poetry critics doesn't know the difference between good and bad poetry, but apparently you do. Please tell me what it's like to have that kind of power to so "humbly" dismiss others' opinions that disagree with yours!


I do sense the dripping sarcasm in your comment, but in truth poetry is the one thing that I know something about. I have strong opinions on music and music history, but only from an amateur's perspective. I lack the deeper knowledge of music that comes from being a musician, conductor, theoretician and/or composer (though I briefly dabbled in all those before succumbing to my limited musical talent). There are some professionals on this forum and when they have something to say, I listen. There's a knowledge of music history/theory that's beyond me. From my experience as a poet and writing about poetry, I am always amazed by how few really understand or grasp the art of poetry. Ricks's knowledge of poetry is limited by the fact that _he doesn't actually write poetry_. Because of that, there's a perspective on poetry that he will never comprehend. It's one thing to be a music critic, it's another to be a composer. It's one thing to be a house inspector, it's another to be a builder/contractor/carpenter (which is how I make a living). So what is it like to have the authority to say that one of the world's most "eminent" critics doesn't know the difference between good and bad poetry? It feels like a statement I'd be willing to defend and with examples-starting with his egregiously poor analyses of Dylan's song lyrics. But here's not the place or the time. Probably too much said already. We both will have to let time sort out Dylan's legacy.


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## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

I'm listening to Weinberg's "Kaddish" symphony right now, a piece I've never heard...so my tastes are definitely widening.

I was very surprised, and a little shocked, when Dylan was awarded a Nobel for writing poetry. Mind, I think he writes some great song lyrics, but I have a lot of difficulty calling it poetry. Writing great song lyrics is a feat in itself, but poetry, no. Different discipline. Sondheim is a truly great lyricist, for example (and not a bad composer). Oscar Hammerstein was a great lyricist. Taylor Swift is a pretty good lyricist, though only a mediocre songwriter...her songs seldom utilize more than five notes, but perhaps that's because of her limited vocal range. I applaud great lyricists. It's just that it's a different discipline than poetry. In my mind, at least.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I find myself in a continual loop of the large category of Classical and selective portions of what that entails, Dave Matthews Band & Phish.
> 
> It's kind of nice to see some formulas developing in me, as long as I stay aware of them.


Good question, Captain. As a relative new listener (2 years), it is actually quite easy to get into a "wave" pattern... For people like me who are new to Classical Music, we tend to explore new music first, and at this point, our taste is definitely widening. Then we find a composer or a few cycles/works that we really like, and believed those to be the essense of Classical Music (which isn't correct). At this stage the taste is narrowing. A same composition could be repeated for a few hundred times when we play the music... Then, people might get boring of what they currently listen to and are "forced" to get new stuff to listen to. Then they get new favorite set of compositions and started to listen to them repeatedly again. However, as a listener listen to more compositions, his ability to understand a new music faster also improves. I remember listening to Beethoven Concerto for 20 times but still not getting it, because I was too obsessed with Mozart. I still am, but I have listened to a variety of Romantic and 20th century music, so I can get a Romantic composition much, much quicker now. Then the time for me listening to a composition repeatedly will drop, and I explore new compositions quicker.

In short, I believe the cycle is: *explore-->have a few favorites-->keep listening to those for a long time, sometimes even years-->get bored, keep exploring-->new favorites-->keep listening to those repeatedly for shorter time-->get bored, move on-->...*


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

KevinW said:


> Good question, Captain. As a relative new listener (2 years), it is actually quite easy to get into a "wave" pattern... For people like me who are new to Classical Music, we tend to explore new music first, and at this point, our taste is definitely widening. Then we find a composer or a few cycles/works that we really like, and believed those to be the essense of Classical Music (which isn't correct). At this stage the taste is narrowing. A same composition could be repeated for a few hundred times when we play the music... Then, people might get boring of what they currently listen to and are "forced" to get new stuff to listen to. Then they get new favorite set of compositions and started to listen to them repeatedly again. However, as a listener listen to more compositions, his ability to understand a new music faster also improves. I remember listening to Beethoven Concerto for 20 times but still not getting it, because I was too obsessed with Mozart. I still am, but I have listened to a variety of Romantic and 20th century music, so I can get a Romantic composition much, much quicker now. Then the time for me listening to a composition repeatedly will drop, and I explore new compositions quicker.
> 
> In short, I believe the cycle is: *explore-->have a few favorites-->keep listening to those for a long time, sometimes even years-->get bored, keep exploring-->new favorites-->keep listening to those repeatedly for shorter time-->get bored, move on-->...*


But you forget the coming back to old favorites part that occurs. But I agree!


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> But you forget the coming back to old favorites part that occurs. But I agree!


I know, but we are talking about the taste, so for me I have no reason to dislike my old taste even if I found many new ones. Well, just tell you what, Mozart is still my favorite. Same with you.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

_But there is still one rule for me--even though I am broadening my taste, I will never ever touch modern stuff like pop, rap, jazz, especially K-Pop. _


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

KevinW said:


> _But there is still one rule for me--even though I am broadening my taste, I will never ever touch modern stuff like pop, rap, jazz, especially K-Pop. _


Jazz goes back a hundred hears. Pop goes back even further. Rap goes back at least to the Last Poets in 1970. K-Pop... well I guess I'm with you there buddy.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I think it's swallowing.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

KevinW said:


> _But there is still one rule for me--even though I am broadening my taste, I will never ever touch modern stuff like pop, rap, jazz, especially K-Pop. _


Why do you feel that you have to explain this? We all choose what music we wish to experience. But since you have made this announcement that you choose to avoid a lot of music which many people think includes some music of very high quality, I'll give you my two cents.

Try not to be so doctrinaire.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> Why do you feel that you have to explain this? We all choose what music we wish to experience. But since you have made this announcement that you choose to avoid a lot of music which many people think includes some music of very high quality, I'll give you my two cents.
> 
> Try not to be so doctrinaire.


It's pretty much the thread topic, is your taste narrowing or broadening. I see no issues with his comments.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

It's a great thread Captain, lets broaden our horizon even more .:tiphat:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Rogerx said:


> It's a great thread Captain, lets broaden our horizon even more .:tiphat:


I'd like to spend some time in the coming months getting to know music on a deeper level that I've already grown to love. Right now that includes many popular works, but I'm ok with that.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> Try not to be so doctrinaire.


but why not ?

dogmas help to keep up the system of values to prevent mankind from degenerating into apes.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

sharik said:


> but why not ?
> 
> dogmas help to keep up the system of values to prevent mankind from degenerating into apes.


Dogmas blind the eyes and petrify the soul.



AndorFoldes said:


> The boomers seem to think that the pop music of their youth has some kind of quality that makes it really special.


Perhaps it does.

But of course, it's easier to put a load of folks in a labelled bag and throw it in the trash than it is to consider what the worth of such pop music might be.



AndorFoldes said:


> Why pop songs written and recorded in the 1960s and 1970s would have some kind of extraordinary value is a mystery to me.


Perhaps it doesn't, universally...rather like Mozart and Beethoven who, for all their popularity in the classical world, are not as universally adored as some would have us believe.

And then there's the issue of understanding others' tastes and not being so dismissive.



eljr said:


> I am a boomer and felt the same for a while. Eventually I matured


Well there's a poke in the eye for the boomers.

Peace?


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Forster said:


> Dogmas blind the eyes and petrify the soul.


depends on... turning a blind eye on certain things is helpful at times.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

sharik said:


> dogmas help to keep up the system of values to prevent mankind from degenerating into apes.


Which dogma? What values? Are you implying that listening to non-classical is degenerative?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

AndorFoldes said:


> The boomers seem to think that the pop music of their youth has some kind of quality that makes it really special. Why pop songs written and recorded in the 1960s and 1970s would have some kind of extraordinary value is a mystery to me.


It's not completely bizarre because the 1960s were the first time pop culture was taken seriously overall and by a significant segment of highbrow critics and commentators while still retaining a very broad appeal. It was also when modern media were in full swing.
Sure, some popular music of the 1900s-1940s became "standards" and there might be some parallels with Jazz vs. traditional high culture in the 1920s (cf. e.g. Hesse's Steppenwolf) but I think one can argue that historically the 1960s were in fact special. Not mainly because of the particularly high quality of popular music/culture but because of the overall historical-cultural constellation.

And while it seems natural to us to still adore popular culture of teenage years, all this was only invented in the 1960s (or late 1950s at most). The adulation of teenagers and their culture was completely foreign to earlier times. And later on, in the 1980s (or even with punk in the late 1970s) the superficiality of popular culture that had successfully married marketing with pseudorevolutionary gestures had become so blatantly obvious, that teenagers tried alternatives (like punk, grunge, rap whatever), each of which was of course transformed into a sellable commodity, including fashion, hairstyle, lingo etc. within a few seconds.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> Yeah, okay, I see where this is headed. It's the fallacy of imitative form. If it's "childlike" and "simplistic" it's only because he was such a towering genius that he _meant_ it to be juvenile (read childlike) and clichéd (read simplistic). Against that kind of fanboism there's no arguing.


It's abundantly clear that plenty of Dylan's work is NOT like that piece at all, so the accusation that it's like this because it's "juvenile" doesn't square with the rest of his output. If it's not like that because he can't do better, then it's like that on purpose. Again, many of Robert Burns's songs have a very similar childlike simplicity and directness to them, and Dylan actually named Burns's "A Red Red Rose" as the poem that had had the biggest impact on him (and a song like Highlands was probably at least partly inspired by Burns's "My Heart's in the Highlands"). This is a style that works very well in lyrics meant to be sung, as I mentioned in my post about Auden and librettos.



vtpoet said:


> The "poem", if that's how we're judging it, is hardly a work of literature. It's nice enough but it's not poetry. Something like this:
> 
> "While the mission bells did toll
> He just stood there staring
> ...


I'm going to need you to support the claim that it's not poetry or literature (what is it? A film?), preferably with a workable definition of what poetry and literature is and how that piece doesn't qualify.

Your entire critical problem is that you take features that are obviously intentionally anachronistic, indicative of the folk roots of the piece, and critique them according to your limited, modern standards for what counts as good taste. It's the classic problem of you trying utilize standards you feel are universal (when they're not) for pieces that are working in other ways on different standards. Note how you basically ignored everything I said that marked the piece's quality to instead focus on things you feel are defects by your own, personal standards.

The last line is certainly a surprise, but it does not feel like an afterthought "tack on" to me, but another element of the fever dream-like nature of the piece. Why does he die of thirst after being in the house for long? The "on the seventeeth" itself is one of the many Biblical allusions in the piece, which also provoke an explanation while simultaneously frustrating one.

Here's another of my favorite Dylan lyrics that has a similar dream-like quality to it, though I do think this piece is better on a formal level I don't find it quite as provocative or evocative: https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/man-long-black-coat/



vtpoet said:


> What? In terms of poetry? Good God, no. There's nothing original about it. Poets had been telling folksy stories in this vein for hundreds of years. This is a poor shadow of poetry already written by far better poets.


You misunderstand. It's not the folky quality I'm pointing to that's the original: it's the combination of the folky quality that seems to point towards it being an allegory or parable combined with the surrealistic touches that frustrate the entire point of classic allegories and parables. Your pieces do not do this. They're folky, for sure, but easily and readily understandable as merely that. Again, yes, certainly better formally composed. Dylan's defects as a craftsman are not something I deny, but, again, he shares this with many poets who wrote their poetry as song lyrics where things like meter need not be as strict, and I contest he has other qualities that make up for that.



vtpoet said:


> Online? Yes, I am. Hands down. As far as "in print" goes, Ricks wins hands down. I suppose I could have pursued a career like Ricks's, but I never wanted that life.


I'm curious as to how you could even quantify how many online readers you have. If you don't feel it intrusive perhaps you could point me towards your content, even if it's through PM.



vtpoet said:


> And that lands us back to my earlier comment that only time will settle the matter of Dylan's legacy.


One last point I'll make about this is that the vast, vast, vast majority of art is forgotten over time, so it's never terribly risky to say any given art/artist won't last. It's much more difficult to predict what art will, and we only ever have very limited evidence in our own time.



vtpoet said:


> I do sense the dripping sarcasm in your comment, but in truth poetry is the one thing that I know something about. I have strong opinions on music and music history, but only from an amateur's perspective. I lack the deeper knowledge of music that comes from being a musician, conductor, theoretician and/or composer (though I briefly dabbled in all those before succumbing to my limited musical talent). There are some professionals on this forum and when they have something to say, I listen. There's a knowledge of music history/theory that's beyond me. From my experience as a poet and writing about poetry, I am always amazed by how few really understand or grasp the art of poetry. Ricks's knowledge of poetry is limited by the fact that _he doesn't actually write poetry_. Because of that, there's a perspective on poetry that he will never comprehend. It's one thing to be a music critic, it's another to be a composer. It's one thing to be a house inspector, it's another to be a builder/contractor/carpenter (which is how I make a living). So what is it like to have the authority to say that one of the world's most "eminent" critics doesn't know the difference between good and bad poetry? It feels like a statement I'd be willing to defend and with examples-starting with his egregiously poor analyses of Dylan's song lyrics. But here's not the place or the time. Probably too much said already. We both will have to let time sort out Dylan's legacy.


I do not doubt your expertise in poetry. My own learning is broad and mostly informal. I will devote serious time to a subject (poetry, music, film, philosophy, science, chess, poker, etc.) to the extent that I still find it interesting and then move on, perhaps returning to it later when my passion for it is reignited. I would not consider myself an expert in any field, but I know enough that I can reasonably converse with experts without feeling their knowledge overwhelms mine, and I endeavor to learn from those who know better than myself. In poetry I'd say Ricks and Helen Vendler have been my two greatest teachers; both critics rather than poets. I can appreciate you have this same approach when it comes to music.

However, I think it's important to understand that things like values, tastes, standards, etc. are not determined by knowledge or expertise. Even time, in terms of what art is remembered and what's not, does not determine the value of artists in any objective manner; all it does is tell us what art continues to subjectively appeal to some people. Art is not science where where when scientists disagree and have their own opinions one of them is clearly wrong because reality can only be one way. We may look up to and learn from people who have such knowledge (which is by no means a bad thing), but in bringing up Ricks it just demonstrates the point that equally knowledgeable people can disagree on matters of taste, and I don't think it very couth for you to just declare that yours is better because of... reasons, I guess.

I also don't think writing poetry is a limiting factor in one's understanding of poetry. In fact, I dare say such critics speak more knowledgeably and insightfully about the poetry they read than poets speak of the poetry they write. I'm reminded of the story of one critic whose elaborate interpretation of The Waste Land prompted Elliot to say (paraphrased) that he had intended no such brilliancies, but had just focused on rhythm and sound. This tells me that while poets may focus on such minutiae of craft (and admittedly I have done that as well in the poetry I've written), what they actually create and the affect it has on readers is much deeper and richer than the technique used to create it.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

sharik said:


> but why not ?
> 
> dogmas help to keep up the system of values to prevent mankind from degenerating into apes.


Value systems are only valuable to the people who hold them and to the extent they actually fulfill their purpose within the environment they're created for. The problem with dogmas is that people tend to believe them unconditionally while ignoring the particular reasons and circumstances they were invented for and, instead of adapting to changes, try to hold on to such anachronisms blinded by the illusion that they're still still fulfilling their purpose. Obviously the really useful dogmas (like "don't murder") become deeply ingrained in us and will probably exist as long as we continue to be a social species. The "apes" that you denigrate share many of these dogmas themselves, being the social creatures that they are.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

I suspect there's more than one understanding of the word "dogma" at work here.

Lexico: "A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true."

Presumably the implication is that whether the principle is true is immaterial.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Forster said:


> I suspect there's more than one understanding of the word "dogma" at work here.
> 
> Lexico: "A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true."
> 
> Presumably the implication is that whether the principle is true is immaterial.


I never thought of dogmas as requiring they be "laid down by an authority," but I think my previous post works even with that addition.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Forster said:


> I suspect there's more than one understanding of the word "dogma" at work here.
> 
> Lexico: "A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true."
> 
> Presumably the implication is that whether the principle is true is immaterial.


Yes, it is imperative to consult a dictionary in such cases because people have a habit of inventing meanings. :tiphat:


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

sharik said:


> but why not ?
> 
> dogmas help to keep up the system of values to prevent mankind from degenerating into apes.


I don't think so. First I wasn't talking about dogma - but the idea of closing yourself off from experiencing a variety of music. I doubt listening to music will lead to someone becoming apelike. I am 70 years old and I refuse to think that I am "done". There's always new things to discover about music, about yourself.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This is a style that works very well in lyrics meant to be sung, as I mentioned in my post about Auden and librettos.


Right, poetry (as understood for several hundred years) wasn't "meant" to be sung but was meant to be read or declaimed. That said, if you go back far enough, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that poetry started out as song lyrics. It seems that eventually song lyrics began to divorce themselves from songs and poetry was invented-essentially song lyrics without music. But as you yourself (and others like Auden) have pointed out, what makes a good poem isn't the same as what makes a good song lyric or libretto. The Nobel Prize committee's and Rick's ignorance of this history, or dismissal of the same, doesn't do Dylan any favors. His lyrics end up looking like juvenile and clichéd poetry when treated as poems, no matter what kind of (absurd in Rick's case) critical edifice you try to build around them.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm going to need you to support the claim that it's not poetry or literature (what is it? A film?), preferably with a workable definition of what poetry and literature is and how that piece doesn't qualify.


Support my claim? Just look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. I sense that you really, really, really want to quibble over _what is really poetry and literature anyways_? - and Christ but those adolescent discussions bore me. If that's what you want to do, then count me out. You ask, _what is it?_ Simple. They're song lyrics. Can song lyrics be "literature"? Sure, if you divorce them from the music. And that usually makes them _bad_ literature because they're being evaluated by the wrong standards. If you _don't_ divorce them from the music, then they're something else. And that's okay. Any knowledgeable reader will tell you that divorcing song lyrics from the music and treating them as literature, comparable to works by Stevens, Frost Keats, Eliot, etc... is to put them at a considerable disadvantage and defeats a genuine evaluation. If the Swedes wanted to meet Dylan that badly, they should have created a new category that wasn't "literature" but something that acknowledged that Dylan's art was three quarters music.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Your entire critical problem is that you take features that are obviously intentionally anachronistic, indicative of the folk roots of the piece, and critique them according to your limited, modern standards for what counts as good taste.


Yeah. If Dylan's poetry is bad it's because he _meant_ it to be bad. There's just no arguing with this. No matter how banal Dylan's effort, that banality was on purpose. If he was boring it's because he _meant_ to be boring[/I] and everyone else is just too dogmatic to appreciate this subtle innovation.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's the classic problem of you trying utilize standards you feel are universal (when they're not) for pieces that are working in other ways on different standards. Note how you basically ignored everything I said that marked the piece's quality to instead focus on things you feel are defects by your own, personal standards.


This goes into the whole subjective/objective standards debate. Anything and everything is a poem and nothing isn't a work of genius because it's all just a matter of taste. And sure, I ignored what you "marked" as the piece's quality because it's irrelevant. There are many fine passages in Salieri that one can point to, but it's not the moments of brilliance that separate Salieri from a Mozart or Haydn. There are few mediocre artists who are wholly incompetent (but they're around). You seem to imply that because Dylan threw in a genuinely good image here or there, and he does, that these negate the otherwise amateurish whole. It doesn't.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's not the folky quality I'm pointing to that's the original: it's the combination of the folky quality that seems to point towards it being an allegory or parable combined with the surrealistic touches that frustrate the entire point of classic allegories and parables.


It's not enough. Makes it compelling song lyrics, but only amateurish and mannered poetry.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> One last point I'll make about this is that the vast, vast, vast majority of art is forgotten over time, so it's never terribly risky to say any given art/artist won't last. It's much more difficult to predict what art will, and we only ever have very limited evidence in our own time.


Nah. Disagree. Strongly. But that gets into the whole objective vs. subjective debate.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I also don't think writing poetry is a limiting factor in one's understanding of poetry. In fact, I dare say such critics speak more knowledgeably and insightfully about the poetry they read than poets speak of the poetry they write.


Poetry and music critics occupy a legitimate, knowledgeable and erudite niche but if any aspiring poet or composer ever sought to learn their art under the tutelage of a critic _rather than another poet or composer_, I've never heard of them.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The problem with dogmas is that people tend to believe them unconditionally while ignoring the particular reasons and circumstances they were invented for and, instead of adapting to changes, try to hold on to such anachronisms blinded by the illusion that they're still fulfilling their purpose.


the key word is 'changes' there, which itself has become a dogma these days.

as for 'anachronisms' - this does not apply to classical masterpieces that are timeless.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I doubt listening to music will lead to someone becoming apelike.


listening to *music*, that is classical, since the very term means 'art of the Muses'.

but listening to mass culture products certainly will.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

sharik said:


> listening to *music*, that is classical, since the very term means 'art of the Muses'.
> 
> but listening to mass culture products certainly will.


I can't take your comments seriously; it is hyperbolic and silly.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

sharik said:


> listening to *music*, that is classical, since the very term means 'art of the Muses'.
> 
> but listening to mass culture products certainly will.


Your twin? Doppelganger?



Zhdanov said:


> to those who might hope their bad taste can be endorsed or justified somehow - no way these 'beatles' or 'stones' and other ugly acts would ever be considered as music.





Zhdanov said:


> wonder why mass culture apologists are present on this forum whilst there are thousands mass culture forums available for them elsewhere...


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

janxharris said:


> Your twin? Doppelganger?


I was also reminded of


Zhdanov said:


> as far as analogies go, i suggest we use more obvious examples, like 'man' vs 'ape', i did before.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Yeah, in a way. More "winnowed" than "narrowed" though, probably.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Deleted….,,.,,.,,,,


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

sharik said:


> the key word is 'changes' there, which itself has become a dogma these days.
> 
> as for 'anachronisms' - this does not apply to classical masterpieces that are timeless.


That things change is a matter of fact. I don't see how a matter of fact could be dogma. Is it dogma to believe the Earth is spherical?

"Timeless" is just a way of saying something continues to appeal to people over time. It's entirely possible a time will come when nobody likes or appreciates classical music; and it's definite that a time will come when there are no humans here to enjoy it all. Maybe the aliens that find that Bach piece floating around in space will like, but probably not.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> Right, poetry (as understood for several hundred years) wasn't "meant" to be sung but was meant to be read or declaimed. That said, if you go back far enough, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that poetry started out as song lyrics. It seems that eventually song lyrics began to divorce themselves from songs and poetry was invented-essentially song lyrics without music. But as you yourself (and others like Auden) have pointed out, what makes a good poem isn't the same as what makes a good song lyric or libretto. The Nobel Prize committee's and Rick's ignorance of this history, or dismissal of the same, doesn't do Dylan any favors. His lyrics end up looking like juvenile and clichéd poetry when treated as poems, no matter what kind of (absurd in Rick's case) critical edifice you try to build around them.


As you said there's evidence poetry began as song lyrics, but we also know of plenty of famous poets who wrote both: Donne and Burns are two examples I've given in this thread, and Donne's rough meter was criticized in his own time and I suspect it was rough for the same reason Dylan's was rough: because they were intended as songs. Obviously when poetry is divorced from song there's a need--at least in metrical poetry--for the meter to be stricter to dictate the rhythm to the reader, which isn't necessary in music. That change alone should mean we're more forgiving about criticizing things like rough meter in song lyrics when discussing their poetic worth.

I don't know what makes you think either the Nobel Prize committee or Ricks ignored or dismissed this history. Again, this whole discussion seems to be you trying to justify your own tastes/standards by casting everyone who disagrees with you in a bad light.



vtpoet said:


> Support my claim? Just look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. I sense that you really, really, really want to quibble over _what is really poetry and literature anyways_? - and Christ but those adolescent discussions bore me. If that's what you want to do, then count me out. You ask, _what is it?_ Simple. They're song lyrics. Can song lyrics be "literature"? Sure, if you divorce them from the music. And that usually makes them _bad_ literature because they're being evaluated by the wrong standards. If you _don't_ divorce them from the music, then they're something else. And that's okay. Any knowledgeable reader will tell you that divorcing song lyrics from the music and treating them as literature, comparable to works by Stevens, Frost Keats, Eliot, etc... is to put them at a considerable disadvantage and defeats a genuine evaluation. If the Swedes wanted to meet Dylan that badly, they should have created a new category that wasn't "literature" but something that acknowledged that Dylan's art was three quarters music.


Ignoring the fact that I've already encountered many definitions of literature and poetry in the various textbooks on the subject I've read, me looking such things up wouldn't tell me how you're defining them and why Dylan doesn't qualify under your definition. I'm fairly sure that any definitions of literature and poetry that were defined using objective qualities (features of the works themselves) would lead to Dylan's lyrics being classified as such. This leads me to think your "it's not literature/poetry" is more of a qualitative judgment based on your personal standards, not one in which you're actually saying that there are objective features of the lyrics that don't qualify as poetry/literature under any objective definitions.

One problem is that I don't see why you can't analyze lyrics as poetry with the knowledge that, given it was created to be sung, it is not subject to the the same standards as all poetry is. This shouldn't be too hard to accommodate given that the same is true even for the many different types of poetry out there that aren't lyrics. You can't really judge Don Juan on the same standards you use to judge Williams's Red Wheelbarrow. The latter two examples require far different standards than the lyrics of Bob Dylan and the poetry of Robert Burns.



vtpoet said:


> Yeah. If Dylan's poetry is bad it's because he _meant_ it to be bad. There's just no arguing with this. No matter how banal Dylan's effort, that banality was on purpose. If he was boring it's because he _meant_ to be boring[/I] and everyone else is just too dogmatic to appreciate this subtle innovation.


You haven't even shown that it's bad. You've shown that it's simple and contains cliches. So does this: 


> O my Luve is like a red, red rose
> That's newly sprung in June;
> O my Luve is like the melody
> That's sweetly played in tune.
> ...


Yet Dylan, myself, millions of poetry lovers, and probably the entire country of Scotland consider this one of the best poems ever written. Simplicity, directness, and cliches are not crimes. Plus, I've already argued the non-cliched aspects of The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, which you've summarily ignored, basically missing the forest for the trees.



vtpoet said:


> This goes into the whole subjective/objective standards debate. Anything and everything is a poem and nothing isn't a work of genius because it's all just a matter of taste. And sure, *I ignored what you "marked" as the piece's quality because it's irrelevant. *There are many fine passages in Salieri that one can point to, but it's not the moments of brilliance that separate Salieri from a Mozart or Haydn. There are few mediocre artists who are wholly incompetent (but they're around). You seem to imply that because Dylan threw in a genuinely good image here or there, and he does, that these negate the otherwise amateurish whole. It doesn't.


Well, it's nice to be told that the features I value in poetry are irrelevant. Irrelevant to whom, might I ask? To you? And why should I (or anyone) take your standards, tastes, etc. as gospel? Yes, ultimately this does come down to the subjective/objective debate and you write exactly like a classic objectivist who is so "humble" they think their tastes and standards are universal and everyone else can kick rocks.



vtpoet said:


> It's not enough.


Case-in-point.



vtpoet said:


> Poetry and music critics occupy a legitimate, knowledgeable and erudite niche but if any aspiring poet or composer ever sought to learn their art under the tutelage of a critic _rather than another poet or composer_, I've never heard of them.


I haven't heard of many poets that learned their art under the tutelage of another poet prior to the 20th century when creative writing classes became so popular and started churning out "poets" who sounded too much like each other. Probably no surprise why most of my favorite 20th century poets are the ones that, like most all great poets of the past, were self-taught in their craft.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

My taste doesn't so much narrow as it focuses on specific things. I'll have periods where I listen to nothing but Beethoven, or minimalism, or solo piano music, or not classical music at all. I sometimes engage in "eclectic" listening where I'll listen to a bunch of different stuff in one day, but I've had periods where I've gone weeks at a time listening to one specific subgenre of music.


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## AndorFoldes (Aug 25, 2012)

Kreisler jr said:


> It's not completely bizarre because the 1960s were the first time pop culture was taken seriously overall and by a significant segment of highbrow critics and commentators while still retaining a very broad appeal. It was also when modern media were in full swing.
> Sure, some popular music of the 1900s-1940s became "standards" and there might be some parallels with Jazz vs. traditional high culture in the 1920s (cf. e.g. Hesse's Steppenwolf) but I think one can argue that historically the 1960s were in fact special. Not mainly because of the particularly high quality of popular music/culture but because of the overall historical-cultural constellation.
> 
> And while it seems natural to us to still adore popular culture of teenage years, all this was only invented in the 1960s (or late 1950s at most). The adulation of teenagers and their culture was completely foreign to earlier times. And later on, in the 1980s (or even with punk in the late 1970s) the superficiality of popular culture that had successfully married marketing with pseudorevolutionary gestures had become so blatantly obvious, that teenagers tried alternatives (like punk, grunge, rap whatever), each of which was of course transformed into a sellable commodity, including fashion, hairstyle, lingo etc. within a few seconds.


I think the point here is that the boomers were the wealthiest generation in history and had money to spend on entertainment, thus the explosion in popular culture. The historical-cultural constellation is not relevant to the quality of the music, and there has been a steady supply of popular music since the 1960s that to me seems similar in terms of quality. Human nature is pretty constant, so I suspect that earlier generations also idealized their own youth.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...Donne's rough meter was criticized in his own time and I suspect it was rough for the same reason Dylan's was rough: because they were intended as songs.


No.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Again, this whole discussion seems to be you trying to justify your own tastes/standards by casting everyone who disagrees with you in a bad light.


Again, however I or anyone else criticizes Dylan's poetry, you're just going to say "subjective taste" (see your comment above). There's no arguing with that except to debate whether there's such a thing as objective standards in art, and I'm content to let you believe whatever you want.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> One problem is that I don't see why you can't analyze lyrics as poetry with the knowledge that, given it was created to be sung, it is not subject to the the same standards as all poetry is.


I have no problem with that. Go ahead! That's been my stance all along. Analyze Dylan's lyrics as poems to sit alongside Frost, Keats or Stevens, but let's not pretend they possess anything like the literary merit of these other poets.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> You've shown that it's simple and contains cliches. So does this...


Seriously? You keep harping on Burns but Burns was an 18th century poet writing in the poetic vernacular of the 18th century. What's Dylan's excuse? And if you can't recognize the difference between Burn's deliberate use of poetic common-places as opposed to Dylan's run-of-the-mill clichés, then it's no wonder you think Dylan is a lyric genius.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Well, it's nice to be told that the features I value in poetry are irrelevant.


I didn't say what you value in poetry are irrelevant, I wrote the opposite in fact. I wrote that mediocre artists can have brilliant moments, but those moments aren't what decide their legacies. Reread my comment.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I haven't heard of many poets that learned their art under the tutelage of another poet prior to the 20th century...


Prior to MFAs, poets simply studied the works of other poets, not poetry critics.

But the bottom line is this: If Bob Dylan's lyrics had been published by any poet _as poetry_, nobody would even know about them. _*Including you.*_ They'd be considered the product of a mediocre and forgettable hack.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

A reminder from our Guidelines for General Behavior:



> Be polite to your fellow members. If you disagree with them, please state your opinion in a »civil« and respectful manner.


Some remarks have been deleted.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

AndorFoldes said:


> the boomers were the wealthiest generation in history


You have quite a lot to say about "the boomers."

For a start, we're not all dead. And then we're not all wealthy.

And we didn't all get together in some post-war conspiracy to wreck the future for Gen-X, Millenials and Snowflakes!


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

I can't claim to have been listening to music as long as some of our more senior posters but now that I've been listening to classical music for about 20 years, I noticed lately that I don't instinctively recoil from the music of certain composers the way I used to. If there is any "narrowing" of my music listening, it's the selection of compositions I listen to from composers I already loved. I listen to my favorites from them while exploring everything from less familiar composers.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

AndorFoldes said:


> I think the point here is that the boomers were the wealthiest generation in history and had money to spend on entertainment, thus the explosion in popular culture. The historical-cultural constellation is not relevant to the quality of the music, and there has been a steady supply of popular music since the 1960s that to me seems similar in terms of quality. Human nature is pretty constant, so I suspect that earlier generations also idealized their own youth.


Such things are not culturally and historically constant at all (and I say this as someone who compared to current sensibilities is an "essentialist", so I do believe that there is a pretty constant human nature). It's a big difference between nostalgia for one's personal youth or "old times" and a huge cultural industry focussed on making money from kids by creating movies, music etc. specifically for them. 
There was no pop culture in our sense before the mid-20th century although there were a few vaguely similar predecessors in the late 19th century (like operetta). 
There was nothing specifically aimed at teenagers either. There was a moderately famous book by Neil Postman about the Invention of Childhood in early modernity, likewise there are probably books about the invention of teenage culture that took place in the 1940s or 50s.

It took a while for the modern popular culture to establish itself and I am pretty sure that the connection with the social changes (civil rights, sexual revolution, vietnam war) had a role in making pop culture and music more relevant (or at least let it seem that way). If if was mere nostalgia there should be not such a difference in later appreciation and status between 1950s rock'n roll and 1960s music. Or compared to later epochs. There are always a few pieces that become "classics" of some sort and there are "revivals" and I am pretty sure that there are people my age (born in the early 1970s) who occasionally indulge in 1980s or 90s nostalgia (like Dirty Dancing, paradoxically itself a movie taking place a generation earlier...). (A whole book and movie was done on silly 1980s videogame nostalgia "Ready Player One") 
But very little or nothing of 1980s popular culture has gained the status of their 1960s predecessors, despite momentous political events at their end, like the fall of the Berlin Wall etc. Because the particular connection with the social and political situation and the relative freshness and authenticity of 1960s popular culture was not there.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> No.


Well, you've convinced me. We know there were musical settings of Donne's work during his lifetime, and the first collection of his work separated them into "Divine Poems" and "Songs and Sonnets." Whether or not he wrote some pieces as lyrics is unknown, but he probably did given that he talks about hearing his pieces sung in The Triple Fool. It would also explain why some pieces are more regularly metered than others.



vtpoet said:


> Again, however I or anyone else criticizes Dylan's poetry, you're just going to say "subjective taste" (see your comment above). There's no arguing with that except to debate whether there's such a thing as objective standards in art, and I'm content to let you believe whatever you want.


Well, no, we also have the ability to debate what subjective standards/tastes we're using to critique Dylan's poetry with. I already have a pretty good idea of what your standards are and why you have such a low opinion of Dylan. Believe it or not I actually share many of those standards as I actually do value formal craftsmanship in poetry, and it's a big reason why I do not rate Dylan higher. However, I'm just trying to show you that there are other standards upon which Dylan can be judged an exceptional poet. You are not obligated to accept those standards as your own, but rather than agree to disagree you've taken the rather nasty tactic of dismissing them and the people who hold them all together, including someone who has been called by actual great poets our greatest living poetry critic. It doesn't reflect well on you when you have to disparage such people merely to assert that your subjective standards are something more than that, but that's the venomous nature of the objectivist position in general, the irrational faith that your opinions are god-like and everyone else's are wrong.



vtpoet said:


> I have no problem with that. Go ahead! That's been my stance all along. Analyze Dylan's lyrics as poems to sit alongside Frost, Keats or Stevens, but let's not pretend they possess anything like the literary merit of these other poets.


Even Frost, Keats, and Stevens cannot be judged on identical standards. They share some similarities but a great many differences. That's part of the point that different poets writing different types of poetry (including lyrics) demand different standards.



vtpoet said:


> Seriously? You keep harping on Burns but Burns was an 18th century poet writing in the poetic vernacular of the 18th century. What's Dylan's excuse? And if you can't recognize the difference between Burn's deliberate use of poetic common-places as opposed to Dylan's run-of-the-mill clichés, then it's no wonder you think Dylan is a lyric genius.


Please enlighten me as to what the difference is between Burns's "deliberate use of poetic common-places" as opposed to Dylan's "run-of-the-mill cliches" beyond the fact you appreciate/enjoy the former but not the latter? "Deliberate use of poetic common-places" is precisely what I'm saying Dylan is doing in those bits and pieces you picked out.



vtpoet said:


> I didn't say what you value in poetry are irrelevant, I wrote the opposite in fact. I wrote that mediocre artists can have brilliant moments, but those moments aren't what decide their legacies. Reread my comment.


Sorry if I misread, but I disagree regardless. Plenty of great artists have had many mediocre works yet are still remembered well. One example that comes to mind is Sibelius. The vast majority of his output is pretty forgettable--getting through the BIS Edition of his music was a chore. Yet he's been served well by time picking out a few masterpieces from the junkyard of his oeuvre.



vtpoet said:


> Prior to MFAs, poets simply studied the works of other poets, not poetry critics.
> 
> But the bottom line is this: If Bob Dylan's lyrics had been published by any poet _as poetry_, nobody would even know about them. _*Including you.*_ They'd be considered the product of a mediocre and forgettable hack.


Of course, and Dylan has absolutely read many of the great poets of the past as well. Tons of allusions to them in his work. I mentioned one in Burns, but Blake and Ginsberg are certainly in there as well, plus the omnipresence of The Bible.

Yes, we do agree on your last claim, but the obvious reason is because they aren't "capital-P Poetry," they're lyrics that have some similarities and dissimilarities with poetry that's meant to be read on the page, and should be judged as such.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

I do not want to intervene into the argument, very good rounds. But to the Dylan mystery there is something that gets me about the lyrics of the rocksters. I have listened to Bowie for weeks and enjoy him more and more, I find his lyrics sometimes brilliant sometimes imbecilic. For example, the lyric of his last MV song "Lazarus" is really good, one of the best; and that of Ashes to Ashes is rather like a psychotic scribble. I know the latter means to appeal to a common psychological background of people, not meant to be directed to any individual impact. Yet, I like both. 

Dylan`s poems and music and performance all seem to be misplaced against each other, like a picture made from wrongly fit jigsaw puzzle pieces or a picture of themes too abstract to be easily appreciated. So I feel he purposefully distants himself from somebody and indirectly tries to choose his audience.

Yea, talk about Keats, Shelley, Lord Byron...so sad no adequate contemporary music good enough to set their poems. That just show the dismal situation of our modern music. Everybody gets methy from ones own original mediocrity, do not want to learn from the past or their contemporaries. Like what Herman Melville said: "it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."--a rare example of famous quotes that I have to disagree four limps up.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Blowin in the wind...

The poem if it is a poem, everything is good untill the repetition of this line. "Blowing in wind" seems to have obscene implications from what I had read from "Headlong Hall" ("break wind" used)a novel by Thomas Love Peacock. And, aesthetically I feel this line having nothing consistent with the theme of the song, when sung, the inconsistency gets loomed and letting the impression just slide toward the "Headlong Hall" remembrance. The music itself could be fine, but I am not sure...could be a passage of melody ruined by half-baked poems. Could be Nobel committee`s plot to expose something who knows. I just feel more awkward to take Dylan as a poet than as a musician, his singing, probably even below his literary performance. In fact, music-wise, he is not as he is a poet and a singer.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Whether or not he wrote some pieces as lyrics is unknown, but he probably did given that he talks about hearing his pieces sung in The Triple Fool. It would also explain why some pieces are more regularly metered than others.


What started this thread within a thread was this: "_As you said there's evidence poetry began as song lyrics, but we also know of plenty of famous poets who wrote both: Donne and Burns are two examples_" That's flatly wrong. There's no evidence that any of Donne's poems "began as song lyrics". Elizabethan poems were regularly put to music, but that doesn't mean any of them began "as song lyrics".



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm just trying to show you that there are other standards upon which Dylan can be judged an exceptional poet. You are not obligated to accept those standards as your own, but rather than agree to disagree you've taken the rather nasty tactic of dismissing them and the people who hold them all together...


That's your interpretation of my comments. In fact, my problem is when you or anybody trots out an individual's curriculum vitae as the end all of discussion. Two examples of your comments: "greatest living poetry critic in Christopher Ricks"; "John Carey "calls him" the greatest living critic". First of all, these are just opinions of someone else's opinions. Secondly, it's a logical fallacy. It's an "Appeal to Authority". I could care less what Ricks's reputation with John Carey is (among others). What matters is what Ricks wrote; and what Ricks wrote on Dylan ain't very good. Here's a review from the Guardian as an example of the ways the "greatest living critic" was/is rightly criticized:

"_Given the deep well he has to draw from, why is Ricks's book such a frustrating read? Why, to put it bluntly, is it such a mess? The answer, I think, is contained in the opening lines, perhaps the least inviting introduction to a book on music I have yet read: 'Any qualified critic to any distinguished artist: All I really want to do is - what exactly? Be friends with you? Assuredly. I don't want to do you in, or select you or dissect you or inspect you or reject you.'

What is wrong with that opening paragraph is what is wrong with this big, misguided book: it is too knowing, too clever, too clumsily conversational. Its tone lies somewhere between academese and what I suspect the author thinks of as casually hip. It assumes too much - about the casual or curious reader's knowledge of Dylan's lyrics - and imparts too little. Not a great start for a book of scholarship._"



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Please enlighten me as to what the difference is between Burns's "deliberate use of poetic common-places" as opposed to Dylan's "run-of-the-mill cliches" beyond the fact you appreciate/enjoy the former but not the latter?


200 years of poetic vernacular separate Burns from Dylan. It was okay for Burns to write like an 18th century poet because Burns was an 18th century poet. If one is treating Dylan's song lyrics as poetry, then it's *not* okay for Dylan to write like an 18th century poet (auxiliary do-forms and that sort of thing). And by "that sort of thing" I mean this:

"While riding on a train goin' west
I fell asleep *for to take* my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had"

(The sad/mad rhyme is awful ham-fisted poetry.)

or

""I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready* for to* fade."

Even granting that Dylan meant to use the "for to" phrase, it's the mark of a rank amateur. The Middle English "for to" was largely archaic even by Shakespeare and Donne's time. But its just the kind of literary mannerism that a rank amateur poet would use, thinking he was elevating his poetry. Forget the 18th century, Dylan is writing like a 14th century poet.

Burns by the way, uses this same prepositional formulation:

"No churchman am I *for to* rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business contriving a snare,
For a big-belly'd bottle's the whole of my care."

But this was A.) still part of the 18th century literary/poetic vernacular and B.) was still colloquial usage in some Scottish & Irish dialects.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, we do agree on your last claim, but the obvious reason is because they aren't "capital-P Poetry," they're lyrics that have some similarities and dissimilarities with poetry that's meant to be read on the page, and should be judged as such.


And on that we agree but, unfortunately, that's not what happened.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

> ""I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade."


Amazing, as a chinese I am amazed. How can a native speaker use his own language this way to pass off as a poem. 
I am getting confident to get a Nobel prize for online posting now.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Mr Tambourine Man.

The lines about being lonely are not making much sense, empty ancient street too dead for dreaming...From initial reading it sounds OK but sung in music, the words will get loomed in all their imageries and meanings. Dylan is cool for doing minstrelsy style minimalist performance, if to value his performance, it would be OK to ignore the poetic defects.

But to take his lyrics seriously out of his musical context to be poetry will sure raise doubts. In the poem, he said he is not asleep, alone, wide awake, but he complains about a street too dead to be dreaming...? So he means to be lulled to sleep by this allusion to the silent street, or that the silent old street scares him? or music should provides a dream for his awakedness? The imagery of awakedness and loneliness have become a thematic thread in this passage, but the "dead street unable to dream" can not be consistent or offsetting any of the given imageries above to complete a poetic sense. The last conjecture seems to make some sense but in music, the title Mr Tambourine man does not evoke any dreaminess. This set in music sounds eerie after all. My first trial at commentary on poetry in English. It is almost impossible to separate Dylan`s lyrics as any kind of poetry from his music and performance.



> Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand
> Vanished from my hand
> Left me blindly here to stand
> But still not sleeping
> ...


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vtpoet said:


> What started this thread within a thread was this: "_As you said there's evidence poetry began as song lyrics, but we also know of plenty of famous poets who wrote both: Donne and Burns are two examples_" That's flatly wrong. There's no evidence that any of Donne's poems "began as song lyrics". Elizabethan poems were regularly put to music, but that doesn't mean any of them began "as song lyrics".


The quibble here is what would constitute evidence. Donne at the very least knew his poems were being put to songs. His (granted, posthumous) collection of poetry was categorized into "sonnets and songs" (and divine poems), and if they were written as songs this would help explain why his meter is so flexible (to put it mildly) when most of his contemporaries were more rigid. That's all evidence. Whether it's convincing evidence is open to discussion. I think it very plausible, but you're free to disagree.



vtpoet said:


> That's your interpretation of my comments. In fact, my problem is when you or anybody trots out an individual's curriculum vitae as the end all of discussion. Two examples of your comments: "greatest living poetry critic in Christopher Ricks"; "John Carey "calls him" the greatest living critic". First of all, these are just opinions of someone else's opinions. Secondly, it's a logical fallacy. It's an "Appeal to Authority". I could care less what Ricks's reputation with John Carey is (among others). What matters is what Ricks wrote; and what Ricks wrote on Dylan ain't very good.


This is also your interpretation (which I've already corrected) of my "trotting out... Ricks's... curriculum vitae." My point, which I already explained, was not to be the "end all of discussion," my point was there exists acknowledged poetry experts who disagree with your assessment of Dylan. This leads to one of two conclusions, either one of you is right/wrong, or that these matters are indeed subjective; and knowledge, experience, expertise, etc. is not alone what determines judgments of quality. In your bid to hold on to your objectivist view that you're correct in this matter you tried to disparage Ricks, as if you know better than than several of the greatest poets and critics of the 20th century. You do this all while previously having called yourself humble; if that's humble I'd hade to see what you being prideful is!

Of course the statements by people like Carey are also opinions. I never pretended they were anything else. However, you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too where such opinions only matter if/when they agree with your own. It's also not an appeal to authority. Appeal to authority as a fallacy requires one of two components: either the authority being referenced is not an authority on the relevant field (Ricks clearly is), or someone is arguing that just because that authority said X, they are right about X. This is not what I'm doing, as I've already explained twice now. Of course, you end this spiel with an opinion of your own, and then...:



vtpoet said:


> Here's a review from the Guardian as an example of the ways the "greatest living critic" was/is rightly criticized:
> 
> "_Given the deep well he has to draw from, why is Ricks's book such a frustrating read? Why, to put it bluntly, is it such a mess? The answer, I think, is contained in the opening lines, perhaps the least inviting introduction to a book on music I have yet read: 'Any qualified critic to any distinguished artist: All I really want to do is - what exactly? Be friends with you? Assuredly. I don't want to do you in, or select you or dissect you or inspect you or reject you.'
> 
> What is wrong with that opening paragraph is what is wrong with this big, misguided book: it is too knowing, too clever, too clumsily conversational. Its tone lies somewhere between academese and what I suspect the author thinks of as casually hip. It assumes too much - about the casual or curious reader's knowledge of Dylan's lyrics - and imparts too little. Not a great start for a book of scholarship._"


...you close by citing another opinion. See, we both can do this. The difference is I understand they're opinions, whereas you seem to think your opinions (and those who agree with you) are not, but are objectively correct.



vtpoet said:


> 200 years of poetic vernacular separate Burns from Dylan. It was okay for Burns to write like an 18th century poet because Burns was an 18th century poet. If one is treating Dylan's song lyrics as poetry, then it's *not* okay for Dylan to write like an 18th century poet (auxiliary do-forms and that sort of thing). And by "that sort of thing" I mean this:


The issue isn't whether Burns was writing like an 18th century poet, the issue was whether or not Burns was using poetic cliches like you accused Dylan of. A cliche is a cliche is a cliche no matter what century it's in. However, since you've now switched to noting anachronisms, I'll note one example from a 20th century poet I believe you previously mentioned in high regard:

"I placed a jar in Tennessee, 
And *round it was*, upon a hill. 
It made the slovenly wilderness 
Surround that hill."

By the time Stevens wrote that this kind of adjective/noun/verb formation was already a relic of the past century, if not moreso. One can argue that the syntactical inversion fits because it echoes the "out-of-placeness" of the jar; but then I can argue Dylan's anachronisms fit because they echo the literary folk traditions (and even older) that he's often drawing upon in those works. There are plenty of Dylan songs where he does not write like that, and I've given examples in this thread. Once again this is just you erroneously applying a standard as if it's universal without any sensitivity or care towards intentions or traditions. I honestly don't give a hoot about such anachronisms if I feel they fit the piece. I may feel they're out of place in some Dylan songs and not others, it just depends.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Ariasexta said:


> Mr Tambourine Man.
> 
> The lines about being lonely are not making much sense, empty ancient street too dead for dreaming...From initial reading it sounds OK but sung in music, the words will get loomed in all their imageries and meanings. Dylan is cool for doing minstrelsy style minimalist performance, if to value his performance, it would be OK to ignore the poetic defects.
> 
> But to take his lyrics seriously out of his musical context to be poetry will sure raise doubts. In the poem, he said he is not asleep, alone, wide awake, but he complains about a street too dead to be dreaming...? So he means to be lulled to sleep by this allusion to the silent street, or that the silent old street scares him? or music should provides a dream for his awakedness? The imagery of awakedness and loneliness have become a thematic thread in this passage, but the "dead street unable to dream" can not be consistent or offsetting any of the given imageries above to complete a poetic sense. The last conjecture seems to make some sense but in music, the title Mr Tambourine man does not evoke any dreaminess. This set in music sounds eerie after all. My first trial at commentary on poetry in English. *It is almost impossible to separate Dylan`s lyrics as any kind of poetry from his music and performance.*


Not impossible, but it's absolutely the combination of lyrics and music that makes Dylan a great artist, and I've acknowledged that as well. My point has never been that Dylan is one of the greatest poets. If we're talking strictly English he may crack that top 100-200 range, but I do not rank him with Keats, Stevens, or even the likes of Merrill and Hill.

In that particular piece, not terribly dissimilar to the Ballad... I posted earlier, there is a faint haze of surreal dreaminess to it. I think this aspect is emphasized even more when it's sung. Dylan could go full surrealist mode with irrational, incongruent processions of images and ideas when he wanted to, especially something like Desolation Row. Things like the Ballad... and Mr. Tambourine Man I find more interesting as a they strike a balance between between the dreamy surreal and logical coherency. Much of them seem to make sense superficially, but occasionally a line will confound and confuse. These poems that exist in that liminal state between awake and dreaming is something Dylan does extremely well IMO. Personally, I don't hear the "eeriness" you refer to in this song. It always sounded very lullaby-ish to me.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wallace Stevens? Who he? I've got a degree in English Literature, but I've never heard of him.

(Appealing to my own authority on the matter, ergo, Stevens ain't no poet! :devil


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Expanding..............


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Forster said:


> Wallace Stevens? Who he? I've got a degree in English Literature, but I've never heard of him.


I assume you're joking...


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I assume you're joking...


Which bit? The emoji should be a clue. I thought it might help to introduce a moment of jocular levity...

...perhaps not. 

Wait a minute...joking that I have a degree??


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Forster said:


> The emoji should be a clue. I thought it might help to introduce a moment of jocular levity...
> 
> ...perhaps not.


I do this often, to be friendly after disagreement but find it seldom translates as meant. Message boards are not a perfect communication tool.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Forster said:


> Which bit? The emoji should be a clue. I thought it might help to introduce a moment of jocular levity...
> 
> ...perhaps not.
> 
> Wait a minute...joking that I have a degree??


I meant joking about not having heard of Wallace Stevens. I assumed the joke because of the emoji, but I wasn't sure if you were joking about the whole post or was just joking with the sentence that preceded the emoji. Ah, the ambiguity of online discussion! No worries either way.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

eljr said:


> I do this often, to be friendly after disagreement but find it seldom translates as meant. Message boards are not a perfect communication tool.


without the cues of tone, body language and facial expression, it can sometimes come across as if one hadn't been taking the discussion seriously and was just trying to be provocative, which can be off-putting if the other party was taking the discussion seriously.

generally i find that just doing acknowledging the disagreement is really helpful there


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Well, no, I really hadn't heard of Stevens.

I confess that some of the exchanges in this thread have made somewhat uncomfortable reading. Two people passionate about their views, generally cogently argued but struggling to keep things civil, and, perhaps, forgetting that there's an audience.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Forster said:


> Well, no, I really hadn't heard of Stevens.


Wallace Stevens is often ranked with TS Eliot and WB Yeats as one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. Some of his most well-known works that are frequently anthologized include Sunday Morning, The Snow Man, The Emperor or Ice Cream, Anecdote of the Jar, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and The Idea of Order at Key West; though these tend to be shorter works, while much of his critical adulation rests upon several of his longer, more difficult, and less-widely-read works like The Comedian of the Letter C, The Man With the Blue Guitar, Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction, Credences of Summer, and The Auroras of Autumn. If I had to pick an introduction I'd probably recommend starting with Sunday Morning. It's a nice middle-ground between the complex, obscure difficulty of the longer works and the accessibility of the shorter works. It's definitely one of his finest either way.

Stevens doesn't quite fit in well with any of the poetic traditions of his own time or before him. He has something of the philosophical complexities of the metaphysical poets, the meditative qualities of the romantics' conversation poems, the elliptical obscurity of the modernists, the lush and evocative imagery of a poet like Keats... While he is considered a modernist he was still very distinct from other modernists like Eliot, Pound, and Auden. He's among my favorites. Sometimes very difficult to comprehend, but very much worth the effort. Stevens also starts to make much more sense when you understand much of the philosophy that influenced him, especially what role imagination can play in a world that's objectively indifferent to is and us.



Forster said:


> I confess that some of the exchanges in this thread have made somewhat uncomfortable reading. Two people passionate about their views, generally cogently argued but struggling to keep things civil, and, perhaps, forgetting that there's an audience.


Hmmm, I don't feel I've been uncivil, though I could be mistaken. I've been pretty content to acknowledge vtpoet's expertise and simply point out that others with equal expertise disagree with his assessments.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Not impossible, but it's absolutely the combination of lyrics and music that makes Dylan a great artist, and I've acknowledged that as well. My point has never been that Dylan is one of the greatest poets. If we're talking strictly English he may crack that top 100-200 range, *but I do not rank him with Keats, Stevens, or even the likes of Merrill and Hill. *
> 
> In that particular piece, not terribly dissimilar to the Ballad... I posted earlier, there is a faint haze of surreal dreaminess to it. I think this aspect is emphasized even more when it's sung. Dylan could go full surrealist mode with irrational, incongruent processions of images and ideas when he wanted to, especially something like Desolation Row. Things like the Ballad... and Mr. Tambourine Man I find more interesting as a they strike a balance between between the dreamy surreal and logical coherency. Much of them seem to make sense superficially, but occasionally a line will confound and confuse. These poems that exist in that liminal state between awake and dreaming is something Dylan does extremely well IMO. Personally, I don't hear the "eeriness" you refer to in this song. It always sounded very lullaby-ish to me.


At least you are not scratching the scalp over Dylan like a fanboy, you are right that Dylan is far from even worthy of comparison with Keats. Dylan is not even a poet if Keats to be considered a poet. For most people he is out of the favor from this point on, but my focus in this thread is on his lyrics which strike me as awkward.

The following evaluations in your post are the diverging point between Dylan`s defenders and other people who are underwhelmed by Dylan. But it is still interesting for someone to go deeper than the point where other peoples reactionary rejection bounces them off. The surreality accompanies most of the musical works, Beethoven called music a dream that could not be heard in his time of blindness and deafness. Tambourine evokes playfulness more than anything else, the inconsistency reminds me of sinister lores of Loreley and the Pied Piper of Germany:

The Pied Piper of Hameln
_
The well-known and much loved story of The Pied Piper luring rats away from the city with his sweet song has darker origins than the classic tale - a tale that can be traced way back to the Middle Ages. According to legend, in the small town of Hameln in Lower Saxony, masses of children disappeared at the same time without trace. No one knows where they went, but suspicions are with a rat catcher who bewitched the kids away after The Town Mayor refused to pay him for a job._

I think most people do not seek for strangeness in music. You have to see some people might react stronger than you to some strangeness of musical or poetical pieces, either negatively and positively.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Ariasexta said:


> At least you are not scratching the scalp over Dylan like a fanboy, you are right that Dylan is far from even worthy of comparison with Keats. Dylan is not even a poet if Keats to be considered a poet. For most people he is out of the favor from this point on, but my focus in this thread is on his lyrics which strike me as awkward.
> 
> The following evaluations in your post are the diverging point between Dylan`s defenders and other people who are underwhelmed by Dylan. But it is still interesting for someone to go deeper than the point where other peoples reactionary rejection bounces them off. The surreality accompanies most of the musical works, Beethoven called music a dream that could not be heard in his time of blindness and deafness. Tambourine evokes playfulness more than anything else, the inconsistency reminds me of sinister lores of Loreley and the Pied Piper of Germany:
> 
> ...


Back when I was obsessed with poetry I subscribed to numerous periodical poetry magazines. While they definitely lead to finding many of my favorite contemporary poets, I'd say that at least 80-90% was poetry that I had no interest in, that didn't move me or provoke me or evoke in me any kind of intellectual, aesthetic, or philosophical reaction. Yet I'd wager that the poets selected for those magazines are/were probably better than 90%+ of all the poets out there writing today. I'd certainly say that Dylan is/was better than the vast majority of the poets getting selected for those magazines. Even if we don't rank him with Keats, that should mean that we declare him an awful poet. If we don't rank a composer with Beethoven, does that alone make them an awful composer?

As always with these issues it comes down to what qualities in poetry we value and care about. Personally, while I certainly value technique highly, I also value imagination and the ability for a poem to, as I mentioned above, provoke/evoke/etc. Dylan does that... or at least is capable of doing that. He also has tremendous breadth in terms of style and subject matter. If he he was able to combine that Auden-like breadth with equally Auden-like technical abilities I think he could be ranked with Keats and the like. As is, he's still probably the finest lyricist pop/folk music has ever seen, which is no small feat in itself. If someone was asking me for recommendations for post-1950s poets, Dylan would still be pretty far down my list, but higher up than many of the acclaimed poets from that time period.


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## John O (Jan 16, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> For example, the Netherlands Bach thread has left me with much to shuffle through!


J C Bach was the London Bach, but which son was the Netherlands Bach?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Expanding, just like you Captain.


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## Doulton (Nov 12, 2015)

I love it that you are discussing poetry. When I was 14 somebody give me a selected "Wallace Stevens" and I was utterly absorbed and enchanted. 
Reading poetry is great. I don't feel a need to be certain that I have an academic interpretation; I can't say that Stevens is my Mozart and Yeats is my Beethoven, but the pleasure I get from them is always repaid. And some poems are simply too amusing, such as "Comedian as the Letter C" by Stevens. 
When I hear music, when I read a poem, when I see a painting or water color I have the same strong reactions and responses. I don't think of them academically until I've learned them to heart, as much as possible.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

My interest broadens as I age; I listen to and become interested in composers I paid no attention to when younger. Part of this is because top 250 stuff, good as it is, wears out its welcome over time.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I find myself in a continual loop of the large category of Classical and selective portions of what that entails, Dave Matthews Band & Phish.
> 
> It's kind of nice to see some formulas developing in me, as long as I stay aware of them.



I saw another topic from you just now........no more music, I can't believe it.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

When I joined TC, nine years ago, I was bursting to sample composers and works which were new to me. I also went into more depth listening to styles that I already liked - early music, baroque & folk music, the last linked with my return to playing the violin (or, more accurately, the fiddle).

But now my tastes have narrowed. I'm busier, so I focus on what I like best, which is folk music, though I've learned a lot because of TC.

The tide may have gone out, but it's left treasures washed up that still bring me joy.


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