After his 2 great acoustic albums, Dylan seemed to hit a new level in his songwriting and performing. Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times, and Tempest are all excellent.
In these albums Dylan's voice is perfect. These are songs of a man who is getting old, his voice is lived in, worn to a nice comfortable growl. And, while he may be old, he is not ready to act that way, at least not all the time. He is looking at the World and his relation to it in about as honest a way possible. The songs are spiritual without preachiness, serious without morbidity, and, often laced with an almost tender humor.
Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This surprised me to no end, but, the more I think of it, no one deserves it more. Taken as a body, his songs, with their exquisite lyrics, are the story of an age. I loathe the term 'baby boomers,' but I will use it as a generational label this once. Through our adolescence in the 60s, to our clinging to survival in the 70 and 80s, to our, at last coming to some level of maturity in the 90s and early 2000s, to now, dealing with aging and mortality, Dylan has been there, chronicling the whole mess. He has been honest, funny, bitter, sweet and, at times downright weird. In other words, just like all of us. He deserves the honor.
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