American music legend Bob Dylan today won the Nobel Literature Prize, the first songwriter to win the prestigious award and an announcement that stunned prize watchers. Dylan, 75, was honoured "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," the Swedish Academy said. The choice was met by gasps and a long round of applause from journalists attending the prize announcement.
The folk singer has been mentioned in Nobel speculation in past years, but was never seen as a serious contender. The Academy's permanent secretary Sara Danius said Dylan's songs were "poetry for the ears." The Nobel award is the latest accolade for a singer who has come a long way from his humble beginnings as Robert Allen Zimmerman, born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, who taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and piano.
Here are his top songs:
1) The Times They Are a-Changin'
This song was released in Dylan's 1964 album of the same name which became the anthem of change. It has been famous for its universal lyrics like 'If your time to you is worth savin', then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changin' which holds true for any time and age. In the year of its release, the song ranked nine in the British Top ten.
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2) Blowing in the wind
This was one of Dylan's career-defining songs which he wrote at the age 21! The song asks rhetorical questions about a range of issues like peace, war, freedom, oppression and established Dylan as the pioneer of the protest song.
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3) Like a rolling stone
This six-minute piece made it to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and was on top of the list of Rolling Stone magazine's '500 Greatest Songs Of All Time'. Released in 1965, it was far different from the singles topping charts that year. This song tells the tale of a young rich girl who falls from grace and has to fend her herself "with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone."
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4) Mr. Tambourine Man
With lyrics like "Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship, my senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip" many interpreted this song to revolve around Dylan's experience with drugs, though Dylan claimed to deny so. The Byrds released their version of this song, the same year as Dylan and both versions received the Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
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5) Tangled up in blue
This was Dylan's attempt to write a 'multi-dimensional' song as he admitted to it having "no sense of time". This was the opening track of 'Blood on the tracks', an album in which many songs captured the singer's feelings about his separation from his wife .
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6) Hurricane
Hurricane is another protest song which released in 1975 and is based on a true story of the imprisonment of boxer, Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, convicted for murder. The track is a compilation of alleged acts of racism and helped spark public outrage over Carter's imprisonment.
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7) Forever Young
Dylan wrote this as a lullaby for his eldest son Jesse when he was 7. Lyrics like "May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true, may you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you" expresses a father's hopes and wishes for his child to remain strong, righteous and ambitious.
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8) Subterranean Homesick Blues
Subterranean Homesick Blues is one of Dylan's first electric songs and made to the top ten singles chart in United Kingdom. This was one of the few songs from the 60s with a synonymous lyric video. In the video, Dylan is holding cue cards of phrases from each line and changing each card in sync with the song.
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9) Lay Lady Lay
This soft and soothing single was sung in a low croon. Post its release, it quickly peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and number five of the UK Singles Chart. The track has warm and romantic lyrics like "whatever colours you have in mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine."
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10) A Hard Rains a-Gonna Fall
This seven minute track is another protest song that warns against a coming apocalypse of war and has a lyrical structure based on a question-answer form. Dylan had stated that every line in this song is the start of a whole song that he didn't have time to write.
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