Written on the occasion of Dylan being awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Could be sung to the tune of ‘Song for Woody‘ by Bob Dylan.

You’re out there traveling another mile down the road,
Listening for messages when the cold winds have blow’d,
Writin’ ’em down and sendin’ ’em out,
Trying to figure what this crazy world’s all about.

Hey there, Bob Dylan, I wrote this for you,
’bout the songs that you write, the words ring so true,
Painting a picture of the world we both share,
Using vivid bright colors, write your poems in the air.

I see you sittin’ out there on the Academy lawn,
Singin’ Homer and Sappho from dusk til dawn,
With a voice as American as Whitman or Twain,
Wave to Jack and Allen, passing by on the hobo train.

Asking the questions no one else thought to ask,
Wearing grease paint on your Bob Dylan mask,
Singin’ the words shot straight through the soul
Travel in a caravan, listen to the thunder roll.

I wonder did they ask, or give you a choice
Before declaring you their generations voice?
They pushed you on a pedestal so far in the sky,
You didn’t sing while you slave, they didn’t care if you’d died.

A has-been they called you, washed-up and worse,
Other’s expectations were your great curse,
Always changing, evolving; never the same,
They said that you’d lost, but you changed the whole game.

They say you came back, but you never left,
Singing songs made of history, love & theft,
The tour never ends, the show must go on,
Tempests may roar, the Titanic sails at dawn.

John W. Leys blogs at Darkness of His Dreams