American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Following is a sampling of Dylan’s classic lyrics:

Blowin’ In The Wind, 1963

How many years can a mountain exist

Before it’s washed to the sea?

Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist

Before they’re allowed to be free?

Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head

Pretending he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, 1963

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?

Who did you meet, my darling young one?

I met a young child beside a dead pony,

I met a white man who walked a black dog,

I met a young woman whose body was burning,

I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,

I met one man who was wounded in love,

I met another man who was wounded with hatred,

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

The Times They Are A-Changin’, 1963

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin’

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin’

It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), 1965

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Make everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It’s easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965

You don’t need a weather man

To know which way the wind blows.

Like a Rolling Stone, 1965

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Lay Lady Lay, 1969

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

I long to see you in the morning light

I long to reach for you in the night

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, 1973

Mama, put my guns in the ground

I can’t shoot them anymore.

That long black cloud is comin’ down

I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.

Shelter from the Storm, 1975

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail

Poisoned in the bushes an’ blown out on the trail

Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

Sara, 1976

Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp

And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore

You always responded when I needed your help

You gimme a map and a key to your door Sara, Sara

Glamorous nymph with an arrow and bow Sara, Sara

Don’t ever leave me, don’t ever go

Hurricane, 1976

Rubin Carter was falsely tried

The crime was murder ‘one’, guess who testified Bello and

Bradley and they both baldly lied

And the newspapers they all went along for the ride

How can the life of such a man

Be in the palm of some fool’s hand ?

To see him obviously framed

Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land

Where justice is a game.

Blind Willie McTell, 1983

Well, God is in His heaven

And we all want what’s his

But power and greed and corruptible seed

Seem to be all that there is I’m gazing out the window

Of the St. James Hotel

And I know no one can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2016