WHEN HE WAS offered the Nobel Prize for literature for his poetic and profound lyric-writing talent, Bob Dylan played a cool hand, seeming not to care. Fans got upset. No pop musician had been lauded like this before. It was his and — by osmosis — his fans’ crowning glory. Why so shy? Briefly, Bob Dylan trended. Something he hadn’t been accused of for decades.
You will know Dylan as the lyricist behind Adele’s sensational civil partnerships first-dance anthem and X Factor audition classic, Make You Feel My Love. You may have heard his early nasal recordings crackling from a gramophone in your grandad’s attic. The troubadour once upset the world by plugging in a guitar.
To me, the fact that he didn’t run with doffed cap to the Nobel committee felt like the most interesting thing he’d done since scoring a Rupert Everett film in the 1980s.