It's true that Woody wasn't a great singer, strummer or blues harp player, compared to many, but he's the ultimate example of a man whose sum is infinitely greater than his parts. To me, sublime.

"His ability to just encapsulate the playfulness and absurdist fun of childlike language, though!"

That's spot on. But he could also, in a three-minute song, use language to hit the nail in the head just as well as any Shakespeare or Dylan. To cut right through, to do that thing that most poets, strain as they will, fail to do, to articulate for you in words a beautiful thought that was deep inside you somewhere but which you couldn't quite draw out for yourself.

"The misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray..."