Jeff Wasserman, Ragnar Olsen, Lars Vaular and Bjørn Eidsvåg have all won the EDVARD Prize for their song lyrics. We asked them what they think about Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
/ 14/10/2016 / codex
The Swedish Academy announced on Thursday that Bob Dylan has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first lyricist to write a popular musical expression. We conducted a short survey among the exclusive "club" of TONO members who have won our EDVARD Prize in the Lyrics category. We quickly received answers from four of them.
Much more than a "song and dance man"
Jeff Wassermann is this year's winner of the EDVARD Prize's lyric category. He believes that both he and all other lyricists today "... walk partly in his shadow ..." and that the Nobel Prize can contribute to increased recognition of song lyrics as an art form:
– This was a superb choice! Dylan has long deserved such an award in the world of literature. There are universities that offer Bob Dylan literature studies, and there are also literature students who have written theses on Dylan's work, says Wasserman. – I hope the award will help both artists and music lovers to better understand the enormous strength and power of a well-crafted song text. Dylan himself would probably just call himself a "Song and dance man", but he is of course anything but this. He is a literary Picasso who, in his best works, uses words as a paintbrush to create multidimensional stories, while at the same time bringing out situations we can see, hear, smell, touch and feel. To do it in a popular musical song form is an achievement that requires a literary genius.
– I hope the award will help both artists and music lovers to better understand the enormous strength and power of well-crafted lyrics (Jeff Wasserman).
– Truly about time!
Ragnar Olsen won the EDVARD Prize in the text category in 2013, and shares Wasserman's opinion:
– It was truly about time! It is first and foremost a recognition of Dylan's brilliant lyrics, but also of song lyrics as a form of expression. And of course I have had a relationship with Bob Dylan, ever since I took my first guitar grips and played holes in the vinyl on "Freewheelin'" and "Another side of Bob Dylan" in the sixties. I am very pleased that he has received the Nobel Prize, he says.
No Dylan fan
Lars Vaular won the text category of the EDVARD Prize in 2012. Unlike the others we asked, he is not overly enthusiastic about the prize winner:
– Yesterday I had lunch at a café in Grünerløkka, and they were playing music that I thought was absolutely terrible. Eventually I realized it was Bob Dylan, and then I thought: Do people still bother to listen to this? I've never listened to him, says Vaular. – I don't really think it's strange that a Nobel Prize in Literature has been reserved for writers. Fiction and song lyrics are different disciplines, even though they have similarities, and a fantastic song lyric can be fantastic without having to be evaluated against fiction. But I also believe that song lyrics are important and that songwriters take their writing as seriously as poets and fiction writers. I try to jump between these booths myself, and in that sense it's inspiring that songwriters can also win such a prize.
– I am proud and happy that Dylan has received the Nobel Prize in Literature (Bjørn Eidsvåg).
Proud and happy
Bjørn Eidsvåg won the EDVARD Prize in 2007. He believes it is an important and well-deserved award:
– I am proud and happy that Dylan has received the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is recognition of an expression that I experience as extremely identity-creating for my generation and those who have come after. Long live the song!
TONO has awarded the EDVARD Prize since 1998. You can see an overview of all the winners on this page.
Photo above: NTB Scanpix/Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times/Polaris