The Winner Takes It All

Thursday night when Paul told me that Leonard Cohen had died, one thought jumped into my mind: The Nobel Committee for Literature should have given Cohen the prize, since he was more poetic than any musicians alive. I could not believe my eyes on reading the first thing in the morning, Jonathan Wells's article Forget Bob Dylan. Leonard Cohen should have been the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. "Great minds think alike," I texted to Paul immediately.

This year's Nobel Prize for Literature is the most controversial one I can ever remember. It silenced Bob Dylan for more than a month, which fermented a rumor circulated on WeChat. Now I would not be surprised if it might have contributed to the passing of a disappointed Cohen.

If we put Dylan and Cohen together for a comparison of poetic expression, Cohen is definitely the winner judging from his literature education, novel and poetry publishing, and his being a top lyricist and musician since the late 1960's. Perhaps the Committee was looking beyond poetic expression, for something bigger and more enduring, such as influence. In so far as influence is concerned, Dylan does surpass Cohen and most of his fellow musicians worldwide, thus The Winner Takes It All, as ABBA sings.

Cohen himself realized the paradox of life a long time ago in Anthem,

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.

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