A lot of people are bewildered by Bob doing a no-show for the Nobel prize for literature – I’m not. I think he found all that business of being ‘The Voice of a Generation’ a millstone round his neck. He doesn’t need it. It stops him being creative by putting too much weight of expectation on him. That dries up the creativity. He jettisoned all that as quickly as he could.

Having these colossal accolades and titles, they get in the way.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.