For many of us who grew up with his records, Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature was met with a little indifference. Having not followed the prize that closely in recent years, I don’t criticise what I can’t understand.

The “You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” approach, tends not to work with Dylan. Most likely, if you’ve seen the blanket media coverage, you’ll get strong opinions from people who’d given Nobel Prizes precisely no thought until last Thursday.

As Iain Martin has already commented on Reaction, most newspaper editors worship at the court of King Bob and commissioned lengthy pieces. Dylan has that effect on many, particularly men of a certain age. For example, HBO once commissioned an entire series which Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm director Larry Charles and Dylan pitched in their office, before Bob lost interest in the project. As the station’s slogan says, It’s Not Just TV. This was His Bobness.

On one side, there are those who feel Robert Zimmerman’s combination of poetry, social commentary and music is a rich form of literature.
Then there are the others. Here is a, possibly not exhaustive, list of those who are unhappy:

1 Jealous novelists who have never won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
2 Jealous novelists who complained loudly and bitterly when Harold Pinter won it in 2005. (This is a smaller list than point 1 but Rock’n’ Roll Hall of Famers can be more divisive than playwrights.)
3 The literary critics who were annoyed their editors commissioned the rock critic to write a piece about a literature prize which should have been rightfully their commission.
4 The rock critics who don’t like Dylan who can’t understand why the literary critic isn’t writing this.
5 Art critics – or the ones who’ve seen the cover of 1970’s Self – Portrait.
6 Struggling musicians who haven’t been nominated for 43 Grammy awards, won a Legion D’Honneur, Presidential Medal of Honour or Academy Award for Best Song and now have to contend with this.
7 The generation of music fans younger than the Dylanologists who insist Morrissey is a more deserving winner. They have not thought through, in the event of Steven Patrick’s victory, the crushing inevitability of complaints about catering at the ceremony.
8 Couples who got divorced during 1975, the year Blood on the Tracks was released.
9 Husbands or wives who lost custody of their copy of Blood on the Tracks when they got divorced.
10 Weathermen who thought the wind blowing was their department until their authority was usurped by Bob half a century ago.
11 Elderly concert goers who turned up just in time for the Stones’ set on the first night of Desert Trip.
12 Anyone who saw the ’80s film Bob made with Rupert Everett.
13 Rupert Everett.
14 The bloke who shouted “Judas” at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1964.
15 The guitar tech who plugged in Dylan’s guitar heckled at the Manchester Free Trade Hall by the bloke who shouted “Judas”.
16 Those who argued that the award was more deserving of a poetic lyricist such as Leonard Cohen.
17 …or Joni Mitchell.
18…or Neil Young .
19 Canadians, basically.
20 Anyone who felt Dylan was a sellout for doing a commercial for Chrysler cars.
21 Or for Victoria’s Secret lingerie. This also applies to anyone green with envy they weren’t on set with Bob for this ad.
22 Theologians who had to tear themselves away from philosophical hermeneutics to listen to Slow Train Coming and Saved on their release and are still sore about it.
23 Those who argue feverishly not only that Bob Dylan can’t sing his own songs, but that he shouldn’t. This delegation has said they will be appeased if the remaining members of The Byrds, The Band and Judy Collins make the speech on December 10th.
24 People who hate all list articles associated with music (apologies) particularly those topped by Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home.
25 The organisers of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. At time of writing, the recipient hasn’t responded to say whether he’ll make it. He hasn’t answered calls either. Sooner or later, one of them will know.