At the end of September, Bruce Springsteen released his highly anticipated memoir, which of course was titled Born to Run. Just two weeks later, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first songwriter to be recognized for such an honor. In Born to Run, Springsteen dedicated a passage to Dylan, calling him “the father of my country.”
On Thursday, Springsteen’s website published an excerpt from the autobiography to honor Dylan’s Nobel win. In it, Springsteen praises Dylan’s unmatched ability to conjure the image of home, of American living rooms in American small towns, all in the lyrics of a four-minute song:
Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were not only great records, but they were the first time I can remember being exposed to a truthful vision of the place I lived. The darkness and light were all there, the veil of illusion and deception ripped aside. He put his boot on the stultifying politeness and daily routine that covered corruption and decay. The world he described was all on view, in my little town, and spread out over the television that beamed into our isolated homes, but it went uncommented on and silently tolerated. He inspired me and gave me hope. He asked the questions everyone else was too frightened to ask, especially to a fifteen-year-old: “How does it feel… to be on your own?” A seismic gap had opened up between generations and you suddenly felt orphaned, abandoned amid the flow of history, your compass spinning, internally homeless. Bob pointed true north and served as a beacon to assist you in making your way through the new wilderness America had become. He planted a flag, wrote the songs, sang the words that were essential to the times, to the emotional and spiritual survival of so many young Americans at that moment.
Springsteen continues, remembering how he performed “The Times They Are A-Changin’” when Dylan received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997. Dylan thanked him backstage and asked, “If there’s anything I can ever do for you…” Springsteen, stunned, answered, “It’s already been done.”
Watch the video down below and don’t forget to share this beautiful song with your friends and family…
