AIN’T TALKIN’

Video: Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize Speech

27-minute speech from early April fulfilled main requirement for prize.

The full recording of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize speech was released on Monday. In his prepared remarks—delivered April 1, 2017, fulfilling the requirement for accepting the prize—the legendary songwriter explains what has inspired his career, from seeing Buddy Holly to learning the folk tradition to monumental pieces of literature like The Odyssey, Moby Dick and All Quiet on the Western Front. He concluded: “Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, ‘Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.’”