Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Yes, I know this is off point from this blog's stated purpose.  Burt when I read this morning that Dylan had won, I just had to say a word or two.

I can recall the precise evening on which I was introduced to Bob Dylan's work.  It was the Friday night of Homecoming Weekend at Franklin & Marshall College, October 1965.  I and a new friend, Bob Hicks, went together to see Woody Allen's stand-up comedy routine in Mayser Gymnasium.  In those days, every big name on the college-concert circuit stopped at F&M.

After Allen's performance, Bob and I went to his dorm room, where we shared a bottle of Christian Brothers brandy.  Bob brought out "Bringing It All Back Home,", which had just been released in March.  The album features "Mr. Tambourine Man," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleedin')", and "Gates of Eden."  Hearing that album --- more than once --- that night can fairly be called the first transformative moment of my college years.

Just imagine, if you will: Woody Allen and Bob Dylan both in one night.

A lot is being said about Bruce Springsteen, as he turns 67, issues an autobiography and a new CD, and comes off a tour of record-breaking long concerts.  Springsteen owes a debt toe Dylan, as a quick listen to "Blinded by the Light" clearly confirms.  And as much as I love the Boss, Dylan soars above him --- and pretty much every other singer-songwriter of the second half of the 20th century, including Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon.

Of course, Dylan doesn't need me --- or even the Nobel committee --- to prove his greatness and a poet and minstrel.  He's won all the big prizes now: Oscar, Grammy, even the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  (Did he really have to wear shades when Obama put it around his neck?)  His legacy is established and I predict it will be lasting... as is the case with the other great poets of our species, among whose ranks he has earned his place.

Speaking personally, it's impossible to express or explain how much his music has meant to me down the decades from that first boozy evening of good Dylan and bad brandy in Bob Hicks's dorm room. Suffice to say that I've helped make the man rich by buying much of his music.  And although I like a lot of his 21st century work, my vinyl versions of "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" still take their spins on my turntable with regularity.