The times they are still a changin’. Today, the Nobel prize for literature has been awarded to American singer – songwriter Bob Dylan. The 75 year-old music icon becomes the first songwriter ever awarded the prize, and the $905,000 that attends it.

Reports say there was both applause and laughter in the hall when the Swedish Academy panel made its announcement,  Evidently, some still look at popular songwriting as a hybrid art form that shouldn’t be eligible for a purely literary prize. As Dylan himself said years ago, his words are no more important than his music. They are meant to be taken as one.

But according to the Swedish Academy Dylan was being honored “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. (more…)