<p>Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in June 2016, and seldom in recent years has it been more richly deserved.</p><p>That a song writer’s lyrics should be regarded as literature was an idea at which many were surprised.</p><p>Others have felt that to isolate the lyrics of a song from its musical context is unreal. Ultimately that is true: a song is an indefeasible whole, an inseparable marriage of words and music which achieves its overall emotional effect by that symbiosis and not otherwise.</p><p>Yet it can also be said that the two components can be separately considered as two elements in the artist’s creative utterance, and discussed as such.</p><p>The evidence of Dylan’s manuscripts supports the view that in writing his lyrics his way of going about things is not always widely different from that of a poet.</p><p>Bob Dylan commented on the Nobel Prize in Literature which was awarded to him "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition": "When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was."</p><p>Voice Without Restraint, refers to and is from the song “I dreamed I saw St Augustine” on John Wesley Harding, and is a phrase chosen to evoke the full-blooded commitment to his artistic utterance which is the hallmark of Bob Dylan’s voice – in all senses.</p>