More of the symbols are stock (does [Bob] Dylan really have hogs lying out in the mud somewhere? I doubt it), but that's the point.

While [Bob] Dylan's folk fans thought he was selling out [in 1965-67], actually Dylan was lodging a stronger, deeper critique of American hypocrisy.

I thought that coming out was going to be the end of my religious life but actually it was the beginning. Because it only afterwards that I could be honest about who I was, what I wanted, how I understood spirituality.

People should support equality because of their religion not despite it. These are the values that openness, inclusion, diversity promote. And they're directly opposed to the kind of enforced closet of certain interpretations of religion.

In honor of his new Nobel, this hard-core Dylanophile wants to share with you a song or two from each of his many incarnations. Because you deserve to know.

Except in these latter-day songs, [Bob] Dylan is a grizzled old prophet who's already been to hell and back.

[Bob] Dylan is a contemporary Don Quixote, at once besotted by the promise of America and yet also undermining it.