Rock Poetry – Bob Dylan

Many rock songs are actually “settings” of great poetic lyrics and political commentary. The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan in 2017 only “confirmed” this officially.
We dedicate ourselves to this special form of literature in a new series. In loose succession, we present famous rock poets and devote ourselves intensively to their lyrics – of course including music recordings!

We start with – how could it be otherwise – Bob Dylan. In his Nobel Prize speech he described how he absorbed the songs of early folk musicians, studied their language and how their lyrics sensitized him. Moby-Dick, Nothing New in the West and The Odyssey influenced him the most, he said, and the Bible is also recognizable everywhere.

Heinrich Detering, Bob Dylan specialist, literary scholar, lyricist and former president of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, and Udo Dahmen, director of the Pop Academy Mannheim, will talk about Dylan’s lyrics.