Texted Version - Bob Dylan 2016 Nobel Lecture in Literature

when I received the Nobel I got to what exactly how much was related to literature I want to reflect on it and see where the connection was I'm going to try to articulate that to you and most likely it will go in a roundabout way but I hope what I say will be worthwhile and purposeful if I was to go back to the donning of it all I guess I'd have to start with Buddy Holly Buddy died when I was about 18 he was 22 from the moment I first heard him I felt a kin I felt related like he was an older brother I even thought of resembling him but he played the music that I loved the music I grew up on country-western rock and roll and rhythm and blues three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre one brand and Buddy wrote songs songs that had beautiful melodies and the imaginative verses and he sang great sang in more than a few voices he was the archetype everything I wasn't and wanted to be I saw him only but once and that was a few days before he was gone I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play and it wasn't disappointed he was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence I was only six feet away he was mesmerizing I watched his face his hands lady kept his foot his big black glasses the eyes behind the glasses the way he held his guitar the way he stood his neat suit everything about him he looked older than 22 something about him seemed permanent and he filled me with conviction then out of the blue the most uncanny thing happened he looked me right straight in the eye and he transmitted something something I didn't know what and it gave me the chills I think it was a day or two after that with his plane went down and somebody somebody had never seen before and it be a liberal record with the song cotton fields on it and ever I could change my life right then and there transported me into a world I'd never known it was like an explosion went off like I've been walking in darkness and all of a sudden that darkness was illuminated it was like somebody laid hands on me I must have played that record a hundred times it was on a label I'd never heard of with a booklet inside with advertisements for other artists on a label Sonny Terry and brownie McGhee the new Lost City Ramblers Jean Ritchie string bands I'd never heard any of them but I reckoned if they were on this label with red belly they had to be good so I needed to hear them I wanted to know all about it and play that kind of music I still had that feeling for the music I'd grown up with but for right now I forgot about it good name was think about it for the time being it was long gone I hadn't left home yet but I couldn't wait to I wanted to learn this music and meet the people who played it eventually I did leave and I did learn to play those songs they were difference in the radio songs that I'd been listening to all along they were more vibrant and truthful to life with radio songs a performer might get a hit by the roll of his eyes or follow the cards but that didn't matter in the folk world everything was a hit all you had to do is be well-versed to be able to play the melody some of these songs were easy some not that a natural feeling for the ancient ballads in country blues but everything else had to learn from scratch and I was playing for small crowds sometimes no more than four or five people in a room or a street corner you had to have a wide repertoire and you had to know what to play and when some songs were intimate something you had to shout to be heard by listening to all the early folk artists and singing the songs yourself you pick up the vernacular you internalize it you're singing it in the ragtime lose work songs Georgia sea shanties Appalachian ballads and cowboy songs you hear all the finer points and you learn the details you know what it's all about taking a pistol out putting it back in your pocket whipping your way through traffic talking in the dark you know that stager he was a bad man and if Frankie was a good girl you know that Washington is a boudoir town and you heard the deep pitched voice of John the Revelator and you saw the Titanic sink in a boggy creek and your pals at the wild Irish roller and the wild cowboy you heard the muffled drums and the fights that played lowly you've seen the lusty Lord Donald sticker mention his wife's and a lot of your comrades have been wrapped in white linen I had all the vernacular down I knew the rhetoric none of it went over my hand the devices the techniques of secrets and mysteries and I knew all the deserted roads that travel down to I could make it all connect and move the current of the day when I started writing my own songs of folk lingo was the only vocabulary that I knew and I used it well that's something else as well I had principles and sensibilities in an informed view of the world and I had had that for a while learned it all in grammar school Don Quixote a Ivanhoe Robinson Crusoe Gulliver's Travels Tale of Two Cities all the rest typical Grammar School reading they gave you a way of looking at life an understanding of human nature and a standard to measure things by I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics and the themes from those books work their way into many of my songs either knowingly or unintentionally I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard and these themes were fundamental specific books that have stuck with me ever since I read the way back in grammar school I want to tell you about three of them Moby Dick all Quiet on the Western Front and the Odyssey Moby Dick is a fascinating book a book that's filled with scenes in high drama and dramatic dialogue the book makes demands on you the plot is straightforward the mysterious captain Ihab Kevin with a ship called the Pequod and egomaniac with the pegleg pursuing his nemesis the great white whale Moby Dick who took his leg and he pursues him all the way from the Atlantic around the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean he pursues the way around both sides of the earth it's an abstract goal nothing concrete a definite he calls Moby the Emperor sees him as the embodiment of evil a haves got a wife and child back in Nantucket that he reminisces about now and again you can anticipate what will happen the ship's crew is made up of men of different races and any one of them who sights the whale will be given the reward of a gold coin a lot of zodiac symbols religious allegory stereotypes a have encounters other waiting vessels presses the Kevins for details about movie have they seen him there's a crazy prophet Gabriel on one of the vessels and he predicts a Habs doom says Moby is an incarnate of a shaker God and that any dealings with him will lead to disaster he says that the Captain Ahab another ship's captain captain bloomer he lost an arm to Moby but he tolerates that and he's happy to have survived he can't accept they have lust for vengeance this book tells how different men react in different ways to the same experience a lot of Old Testament biblical allegory Gabriel Rachel Jeroboam build on Elijah pay you names as well Tashtego flask daggoo fleece Starbuck Stubb mother's Vineyard the pagans are Idol worshipers some worship little wax figures some wooden figures some worship fire the Pequod is the name of an Indian tribe Moby Dick is a seafaring tale one of the men the narrator says call me is now somebody asked him where he's from he says it's not done on any map two places never are Stubb gives no significance to anything says everything is predestined Ishmael has been on a sailing ship his entire life calls the sailing ships he has Harvard and Yale he keeps his distance from people but typhoon hits the Pequod Captain Ahab thinks it's a good omen Starbuck thinks it's a bad woman considers killing a ham as soon as the storm ends a crew member falls from the ship's mast and drowns foreshadowing was to come a quaker pacifist priest who is actually a bloodthirsty businessman tell flask some men who received injuries are led to God others are led to bitterness everything is mixed in all the myths the judeo-christian Bible Hindu myths British legends st. George Perseus cookies there are whalers Greek mythology the gory business of cutting up a whale lots of facts in this book geographical knowledge whale oil Goods the coronation of royalty noble families in the whaling industry whale oil is used to anoint the Kings history of the whale phrenology classical philosophy pseudo scientific theories justification for discrimination everything thrown in and none of it highly rational highbrow lowbrow chasing and losing chasing death the great white whale where does a polar bear what is a white man the Emperor the nemesis the embodiment of evil the demented Kathryn who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack with a knife we see only the surface of things we can interpret what lies below any way we see fit kou man walk around on deck listening for mermaids and sharks and vultures follow the ship reading skulls and faces like you read a book here's a face I put in funnier readin if you can test ego says he died and was reborn his extra days are gift he wasn't saved by Christ though he says he was saved by a fellow man and a non-christian as that he parodies the resurrection when Starbuck tells a head that he shall let bygones be bygones the angry captain snaps back speak that to me a blaspheming man I'd strike the Sun if it insulted me a hab too is a poet of eloquence he says the path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails where my soul is grooved to run or these lines all visible objects are both pasteboard masks quotable poetic phrases that can't be beat finally I have spots Bobby and the harpoons come out boats are lured a halfs harpoon is embedded in blood Bovie attacks a halfs boat it destroys it next day he strikes movie again boats are lowered again Moby attacks Ahab's boat again on a third day another boat goes in more religious allegory he is risen Moby attacks one more time ramming the Pequod and sinking it a hab gets tangled up in the harpoon lines and is thrown out of his boat into a watery grave its rail survives he's in the sea floating on a coffin and that's about it that's the whole story that team and all that it implies would work its way into more than a few of my songs All Quiet on the Western Front was another book that did All Quiet on the Western Front is a horror story this is a book where you lose your childhood your faith in a meaningful world and your concern for individuals you're stuck in a nightmare sucked up into a mysterious whirlpool of death and pain you're defending yourself from elimination you're being wiped off the face of the map once upon a time you were an innocent youth with big dreams about being a concert pianist once you loved life and the world and now you're shooting it to pieces day after day the hornets bite you in words laughs your blood you're a cornered animal you don't fit anywhere the falling rain is monotonous this endless assaults Pleasant gas nerve gas morphine burning streams of gasoline scavenging and scabbing for food influenza types us dysentery life is breaking down all around you in the shelves I'm whistling this is the lower region of Hell mud barbed wire rat filled trenches rats eating the intestines of dead man trenches filled with filth excrement someone shouts hey you there stand and fight who knows how long is nestled on warfare has no limit you're being annihilated and that leg of yours is bleeding too much you killed a man yesterday and you spoke to his corpse you told him after this is over you'll spend the rest of your lives looking after his family who's profiting here the leaders in the generals gained fame and many other prophets on mentally but you do the dirty work one of your comrades says wait a minute where are you going and you say leave me alone I'll be back then you walk out into the woods of death hunting for a piece of sausage you can't see how anybody in civilian life is any kind purpose at all oh they're worries all the desires you can't comprehend it more machine guns rattle more pots of bodies hanging from wires more pieces of arms and legs and skulls where butterflies push on teeth more hideous wounds puffs coming out of every pore lung rooms wounds too big for the body gas blowing cadavers and dead bodies making retching noises death is everywhere nothing else is possible someone will kill you and use your dead body for target practice boots too they're your prized possession but soon they'll be on somebody else's feet there's froggies coming through the trees merciless bastards your cells are running out it's not fair to come at us again so soon you say one of your companions is laying in the dirt and you are take them to the field hospital someone else says you might save yourself a trip what do you mean turn him over you'll see what I mean you wait to hear the news you understand why the war isn't over the Army is so strapped for replacement troops at the drafting young boys who are little military use but to draft them anyway because we're running out of man sickness and humiliation and bilk in your heart you would betrayed by your parents your school masters your ministers and even your own government the general with the slowly smoked cigars you to turn you into a thug and a murderer if you could you'd put a bullet in his face the commander as well you fantasize that if you had the money you put up a reward for any man who would take his life by any means necessary and if he should lose his life by doing that then let the money go to his ass the colonel too with his caveat as coffee he's another one spends all his time in the officers brothel you'd like to see him stone dead two more Tommy's and Johnny's with their whack for my daddy-o and their whiskey of the jaws you kill 20 of them and 20 mole will spring up in their place it just stinks in your nostrils you've come to despise that older generation that set you out into this madness into this torture chamber all around you your comrades are dying dying from abdominal wounds double amputations shattered hip bones and you think I'm only 20 years old but I'm capable of killing anybody even my father if he came at me yesterday you tried to save her who didn't messenger dog somebody shouted don't be a fool one froggy is laying gurgling at your feet you're stuck in with a dagger in his stomach but the man still lives you know you should finish the job but you can't you're on the real iron cross and a Roman soldier is putting a sponge of vinegar to your lips months passed by you go home on leave you can't communicate with your father he said he'd be a coward if you don't enlist your mother to on your way back out the door she says you be careful of those french girls now more madness you fight for a week or a month and you gain 10 yards and then the next month it gets taken back all that culture from a thousand years ago that philosophy that wisdom Plato Aristotle Socrates what happened to it it should have prevented this your thoughts turned homework and once again you're a schoolboy walking through the tall poplar trees it's a pleasant memory more bombs dropping on you from blimps you got to get it together now you can't even look at anybody for fear of some miscalculate there are no other possibilities then you notice the cherry blossoms and you see that nature is unaffected by all this poplar trees the red butterflies the fragile beauty of flowers the Sun you see how nature isn't different you at all all the violence and suffering and mankind Nature doesn't even notice it you're so alone then a piece of shrapnel hits the side of your head and you're dead you've been ruled out crossed out you've been exterminated I've put this book down and closed it up I never wanted to read another war novel again and I never did Charlie Poole from North Carolina had a song that connected to all this it's called you ain't talking to me and the lyrics go like this I saw a sign in the window walking uptown one day join the army see the world is what it had to say you'll see exciting places with a jolly crew you'll meet interesting people and learn to kill them too oh you ain't talking to me you ain't talking to me I may be crazy and all that but I got a good sense you see you ain't talking to me you ain't talking to me killing with a gun don't sound like fun you ain't talking to me The Odyssey is a great book whose themes have worked its way into the balance of lotta songwriters homeward bound green green grass of home home on the range and my songs as well the Odyssey is a strange adventurous tale of a grown man trying to get a home after fighting in a war he's on that long journey home and it's filled with traps and pitfalls he's cursed to wander he's always getting carried out to sea always having close calls huge chunks of boulders rock his boat he angers people he shouldn't there's troublemakers in his crew treachery his men I turned into pigs and then they're turned back into younger more handsome men he's always trying to rescue somebody he's a traveling man but he's making a lot of stops he's stranded on a desert island he finds deserted caves and he hides in them he meets Giants and say I'll eat you last and he escapes from Giants he's trying to get back home but he's tossed and turned by the winds Restless winds chilly winds unfriendly winds he travels far and then he gets blown back he's always being warned of things to come touching things he's told not to there's to Rosa Teague and they're both bad both hazardous on one you could drown and on the other you could starve he goes into the narrow streets with foaming whirlpools that swallow him meat six headed monsters with shock fangs Thunderbolts strike at him overhanging branches that he makes a leap to reach far to save himself among raging river goddesses and gods to check in but some others want to kill him he changes identities he's exhausted he falls asleep and he's woken up by the sound of laughter he tells his story to strangers he's been gone 20 years he was carried off somewhere and left there drugs have been dropped into his wine it's been a hard road to travel in a lot of ways some of these same things have happened to you you two have had drugs dropped into your wine you two have shared a bed with the wrong woman you two have been spellbound by magical voices sweet voices with strange melodies you two have come so far and have been so far blown back and you've had close calls as well you have angered people you should not have now you two have rambled this country all around and you've also felt that he'll wind the wind that blows you no good and that's still not all of it when he gets back home things on any better scoundrels have moved in an hour taking advantage of his wife's hospitality and there's too many of them and though he's greater than the mall and the best of everything best carpenter best hunter best expert on animals best seaman his courage won't save him but his trickery will call these stragglers we'll have to pay for desecrating his palace he'll disguise himself as a filthy beggar and a lowly servant kicks him down and steps with arrogance and stupidity the servants arrogance revolts him but he controls his anger he's won against a hundred but they'll all fall even the strongest he was nobody and when it's all said and done when he's home at last he sits with his wife and he tells us the stories so what does it all mean myself and a lot of other songwriters have been influenced by these very same themes and they could mean a lot of different things if a song moves you that's all that's important I don't have to know what a song means I've written all kinds of things into my songs and I'm not going to worry about it what it all means when Melville put all his Old Testament biblical references scientific theories Protestant doctrines and all that knowledge of the sea and sailing ships and whales into one story I don't think he would have worried about it either what it all means John Donne as well the poet priest who lived in the time of Shakespeare wrote these words the cistal's and a by toes of her breasts not of two lovers but two loves the nest I don't know what it means either but it sounds good and you want your songs to sound good when Odysseus in the Odyssey visits the famed warrior Achilles in the underworld Achilles who treated a long life full of peace and contentment for a short one full of honour and glory tells Odysseus it was all mistake I just died that's all there was no honor no immortality and that if he could he would choose to go back and be a lowly slave to a tenant farmer on earth rather than be what he is a king in the land of the dead that whatever his struggles of life were they were preferable to being here in this dead place and that's what songs are to our songs are alive in the land of the living but songs are unlike literature they meant to be sung not read the words in Shakespeare's plays were meant to be acted on the stage just as lyrics and songs I meant to be sung not read on a page and I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard in concert on record or however people are listening to songs these days I returned once again to Homer who says singing me old mutes and do me tell the story you

Channel: Nobel Prize

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Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2017