Christmas will never be the same, now that there is an album full of carols sung by Bob Dylan, who has turned in a perhaps unexpected direction to complete what some music journalists have dubbed his ''difficult 34th album''.
It's also the only album on which he sings in Latin.
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Of course we've all known Bob loved Christmas since he devoted two hours of his radio show to it, gave us his recipe for plum pudding (or figgy pudding) and recited The Night Before Christmas. That show demonstrated the extraordinary breadth of Christmas music - from the beatnik banter of Patsy Raye to country Christmas care of Johnny Paycheck, from Calypso Christmas from Lord Nelson to jazz - would you believe "Bopping for Santa". Not to mention the double entendres of "I Want a Casting Couch for Christmas" (listen here) from Kay Martin and Her Bodyguards, who made a whole album of playful smutty Christmas songs.
So the only surprise then is that Dylan plays his Christmas album so
straight - apart from inserting the names of American presidents into Must Be Santa, as if they were reindeer like Donner, Blitzen and co. He even goes relatively easy on The Christmas Blues, with a light treatment.
All of which means this album would make a nice Christmas present - with all the proceeds going to feed the poor.
Now there are presents and there are prizes - and some people were disappointed recently to see that another year had gone by by and Dylan's nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature had still to meet with favor from the Swedish committee. I think the people nominating Bob should knock it off. For starters I think he has more than enough awards. And as far as he's concerned, I doubt anything can beat being made an honorary Texan by the then governor of Texas - yep, George W Bush. But anyway, I've got a better idea.
Give Bob the Nobel Prize for Mathematics - and not for his aspirations, his desire to one day solve The Riemann Hypothesis, which would enable us to predict the occurrence of prime numbers (you know, the ones that can't be divided, except by 1 and themselves). No, give Bob the prize because of his mathematical theory of music.
Consider this passage from Chronicles, Dylan's hyperreal, oddly syncopated memoir, which I'm sure impresses the Nobel committee more than his alleged novel Tarantula. He is describing a guitar technique taught to him by the bluesman Lonnie Johnson in the early 60s, which he remembers 25 years later, then intends to use:
''The sytem works in a cyclical way. Because you're thinking in odd numbers rather than even numbers, you're playing with a different value system. Popular music is usually based on the number 2 and then filled in with fabrics, colors, effects and technical wizardry to make a point. But the total effect is usually depressing and oppressive... If you're using an odd numerical system, things that strengthen a performance automatically begin to happen and make it memorable for the ages. You don't have to plan or think ahead. In a diatonic scale there are eight notes, in a pentatonic scale there are five. If you're using the first scale, and you hit 2, 5 and 7 to the phrase and then repeat it, a melody forms. Or you can use 2 three times. Or you can use 4 once and 7 twice. It's infinite what you can do, and each time would create a different melody. The possibilities are endless... And because this works on its own mathematical formula it can't miss. I'm not a numerologist. I don't know why the number 2 is more powerful metaphysically than the number 3, but it is... The total effect would be physiological, and triplet forms would fashion melodies at intervals.''
He nominates Link Wray's Rumble (listen here) as an example of just such a song.
And he continues: ''It's not a heavy theorized thing, it's geometrical. I'm not that good at math, but I do know that the world is formed with mathematical principles whether I understand them or not, and I was going to let that be my guide... I would use different algorithms that the ear is not accustomed to.''
Now very few people in the world can understand that, which is only fitting from a Nobel laureate.
Which is why Dylan should hereby be awarded the Nobel Prize for Mathematics. Dylan's win would be unprecedented. It need have no successor.
For the maths prize, of course does not exist. A Christmas present for the man who has everything - something that doesn't exist.
The story goes that there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics because Alfred Nobel had a grudge against a maths professor who had an affair with his wife. A chap by the name of Gosta Mittag-Leffler is often nominated as the said professor. But Nobel never married. Chances are it was simply that Nobel just didn't go for maths.
Copyright Michael Epis
4 comments so far
Enjoyed that article. Talking about Nobel prizes, when are you going to do a satirical piece on Obama's peace prize, surely it's an obvious topic for lampooning! Thanks for that. Obama - what a beauty.
Commenter
dinky
Location
melbourne
Date and time
October 21, 2009, 3:34PM
I want that puddin recipe. It would be interesting to compare it with the famous Nesselrode admired by M. Proust. I haven't found a reference to Marcel in Chronicles yet, but they are clearly soul-mates. XOXO
Commenter
Hiltonsister
Location
Lucaston
Date and time
September 23, 2010, 12:31AM
Sure would like to hear Mr Bob say "figgy pudding".
Commenter
Pony Maloney
Location
Fitzroy
Date and time
October 19, 2009, 1:04PM
@ "dinky" et "Pony Maloney"
Maybe the best of both world on your.
Bob Dylan what the sell out, for sure on that one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRQQ-0A0J14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AduWZk_Kxsw&feature=PlayList&p=476BDCA9F80E83E3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=4
Look here is Jackie look in the woods and then our's Liberal Iggy looks like he is looks int he wood to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Ws_Bp7WYA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5enyA1SLqw&feature=channel
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