# Bob Dylan's Speech at MusiCares/Grammys - speaks his mind
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 13, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583 "2015-02-13T15:41:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/1 "2015-02-13T15:41:40Z")
Full transcript at the LA Times here: [Grammys 2015: Transcript of Bob Dylan's MusiCares Person of Year speech](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-grammys-2015-transcript-of-bob-dylans-musicares-person-of-year-speech-20150207-story.html#page=1)
He talks about his view of music, songwriting and a number of people in the business - some he thinks should be remembered more; some he doesn’t think much of. Has kind words for Joan Baez, who kinda got the fuzzy end of the lollipop in their relationship.
Here’s what he says about singers and singing at one point:
> [@](#):
>
> After that it was time for our national anthem. And a very popular soul-singing sister was chosen to sing. She sang every note – that exists, and some that don’t exist. Talk about mangling a melody. You take a one-syllable word and make it last for 15 minutes? She was doing vocal gymnastics like she was on a trapeze act. But to me it was not funny.
>
> Where were the critics? Mangling lyrics? Mangling a melody? Mangling a treasured song? No, I get the blame. But I don’t really think I do that. I just think critics say I do.
>
> Sam Cooke said this when told he had a beautiful voice: He said, “Well that’s very kind of you, but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.” Think about that the next time you [inaudible].
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/2 "2015-02-13T15:45:34Z")
_Something something mumble [inaudible] mutter something_ is kind of every Dylan speech for the last 30-40 years.
Which is too bad; I think the man has some important things to say, in all the forms he has at his command. But like Dustin Hoffman’s unintentionally self-parodic perfomance as Mumbles in _Dick Tracy_, he has never learned to communicate very well.
Excuse my while I cue up “Desolation Row” at volume that annoys my dogs, and mope a bit.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/3 "2015-02-13T16:05:50Z")
God, that speech is like some of his worst songs - rambling, no direction, no structure and too long! I had to skim the last 1/4. I would have hated to have been there. Thirty minutes! And I’m sure he thought every word he said was true. And it probably made sense to him.
Though sometimes I have this feeling that Dylan is pulling a big joke on everyone. That he sometimes deliberately puts out crap just to see everyone parse out every syllable to get the “truth” out of it.
Thouhg i do agree about singers that mangle the national anthem. Just sing it like it was written! It’s not a song that is open to alternate versions.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/4 "2015-02-13T16:13:28Z")
Kanye’s going to be _pissed._
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/5 "2015-02-13T16:30:27Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> Thouhg i do agree about singers that mangle the national anthem. Just sing it like it was written! It’s not a song that is open to alternate versions.
Fuckin’ _A_.
TSSB sung completely straight, by a good singer, is a wondrous experience.
Every time I see some diva belting it out with endless embellishments, her upper lip flapping in the breeze as she trills a note that doesn’t need trilling, I think the right to burn flags should include the right to burn such hacks at the stake.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/6 "2015-02-13T18:28:04Z")
What about the Hendrix version?
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/7 "2015-02-13T18:33:36Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> What about the Hendrix version?
Here you go:
> [@](#):
>
> Oh, and can’t forget Jimi Hendrix. I actually saw Jimi Hendrix perform when he was in a band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames – something like that. And Jimi didn’t even sing. He was just the guitar player. He took some small songs of mine that nobody paid any attention to and pumped them up into the outer limits of the stratosphere and turned them all into classics. I have to thank Jimi, too. I wish he was here.
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### Author:  [@Themenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/8 "2015-02-13T21:06:13Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> rambling, no direction, no structure and too long!
like a rolling stone…
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/9 "2015-02-13T21:15:09Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> What about the Hendrix version?
For the time and audience, it was beyond magnificent. Still is.
In front of the 2010 World Series opener, not so much. It’s all context, and even though its singing at baseball games and elsewhere is a ritual, with all its tiresome aspects, it doesn’t need to be dressed up to show how _fioritura_ the singer can get. It’s not an ego ride; it’s for and about all of us, and needs to be sung as a collective anthem with one voice.
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### Author:  [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/10 "2015-02-13T21:15:27Z")
I really liked his radio show. Got a very, very dry sense of humour. Not always easy to _get_.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/11 "2015-02-13T21:55:48Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> What about the Hendrix version?
I ran a foot race in Iraq once. Somehow, some private (chaplain’s assistant? CO’s driver?) talked the colonel in charge into letting him play an electric guitar version of the national anthem before the race.
It started out okay. It was still dark, and as the first few rays came over the horizon, and we were all crowded at the starting line waiting for him to finish. The first few bars were okay, clear, lots of sustain, loudly pouring out of the PA… and then he went off the rails. He lost the melody, started noodling around, and it just got really shitty. Distorted, mushy, no rhythm, it sounded about like when I was 14 and “practiced” my guitar in my bedroom all night. And he never stopped. It went on for an excruciating 10 minutes or so before somebody cut him off and got the race started.
Anyway, it really made me appreciate Jimi. He didn’t just noodle around and show off his sloppy licks. Even if it sounded like that sometimes, he always knew what he was doing.
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### Author:  [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/12 "2015-02-13T22:18:55Z")
_The Star Spangled Banner_ sucks no matter who sings it or how they sing it. It’s just a poorly written song that should never have become the national anthem.
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### Author:  [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/13 "2015-02-14T03:01:49Z")
Well, I read the thing, so it was good enough to hold my interest. The part about confounding expectations made me raise my eyes – but not quite roll them. If you make a point of confounding expectations, pretty soon you start coming off as just arbitrary. And caring about the expectations of others isn’t something I expect from a major artist.
(He’s confounded my expectations, da tricky bastid.)
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2015, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/14 "2015-02-14T04:17:17Z")
You’d think at this point in his career Bob Dylan would kind of be past the need to engage in either name dropping or complaining about music critics. But that speech is pretty much him doing one or the other the whole time.
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### Author:  [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2015, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/15 "2015-02-16T06:58:33Z")
That was the biggest fail at attempted humility I have ever read. He sounds incredibly vain and full of himself.
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2015, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/16 "2015-02-16T07:16:09Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Fuckin’ _A_.
>
> TSSB sung completely straight, by a good singer, is a wondrous experience.
>
> Every time I see some diva belting it out with endless embellishments, her upper lip flapping in the breeze as she trills a note that doesn’t need trilling, I think the right to burn flags should include the right to burn such hacks at the stake.
For my money it can’t get any better than [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc81Cso6S2U)!
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/17 "2015-02-16T18:26:04Z")
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> You’d think at this point in his career Bob Dylan would kind of be past the need to engage in either name dropping or complaining about music critics. But that speech is pretty much him doing one or the other the whole time.
It’s an insight into his ego isn’t it? He stored those meaningless now-irrelevant slights in his head for forty years, and just HAD to get even.
[Here](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/10/what-did-poor-old-tom-t-hall-do-to-do-deserve-bob-dylans-scorn/) is a dissection of the revenge Bob had against that monster Tom T. Hall. Some excerpts:
“Way back when, I was in Nashville making some records and I read this article, a Tom T. Hall interview,” in which Hall, Dylan said, “was bitching about some kind of new song, and he couldn’t understand what these new kinds of songs that were coming in were about.”
Whatever the upshot of the interview, Dylan seems to have taken it personally. He spent the next couple minutes tearing into Hall’s hit, “I Love” — the one about little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow-moving trains and rain — as “overcooked” and grousing that “Tom and a few other writers had the whole Nashville scene sewed up in a box.”
Haggard tweeted his kill-him-with-kindness response, but what of Hall, now 78 and semi-retired? Don’t expect to hear much. Friends in Nashville said Monday he’s been crushed by the death last month of his wife of 46 years, Dixie. A call to Hall’s office was returned quickly and politely by an assistant. “He appreciates your interest but really didn’t have any comment.”
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2015, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bob-dylans-speech-at-musicares-grammys-speaks-his-mind/712583/18 "2015-02-17T07:23:17Z")
> [@Myglaren](#):
>
> For my money it can’t get any better than [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc81Cso6S2U)!
All those canadian boys standing around on the ice, looking sheepish, with the odd american.
Anyway, beautiful rendition, previously my fav was done by Jewel
Declan