Bob Dylan & Bruce Springsteen, 1988

Virtually every singer and songwriter who came after Bob Dylan was influenced by him in some way, and Bruce Springsteen’s induction of Dylan into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame captures that true essence and what he means to every songwriter and fan. Bruce demonstrates his great prowess as a storyteller – undoubtedly a skill he picked up directly from the songwriting of Dylan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Welcome to Induction Vault, a production of I Heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. M.

(00:28):
There are a handful of artists who are so essential
to the evolution of rock and roll that it's almost
impossible to imagine what music would be like without them.
Bob Dylan is undeniably one of those artists. Virtually every
singer and songwriter who came after Dylon was influenced by
him in some way, and Bruce Springsteen's induction of Dylan

(00:49):
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame captures that
true essence and what he means to every songwriter and fan.
How Dylan changed the rules of rock and roll forever,
how he reinvented the way singers could sound, and how
he redefined the limits of what artists could achieve. In
the reporting studio, Bruce demonstrates his great prowess as a storyteller,

(01:12):
undoubtedly a skill he picked up directly from the songwriting
of Dan h Thanks. The first time it U I

(01:33):
heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my
mother and Uh, we were listening to I Think maybe
W M C A. And on came that snare shot
that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your
mind from like a rolling stone. And my mother, who
was she was no stiff with rock and roll. She

(01:54):
she liked the music. She listened. She sat there for
a minute and she looked at me and she said
that guy can't ain't. And but I knew she was wrong,
you know. I sat there. I didn't say nothing, but
I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice
that I had ever heard. It was lean, and it

(02:14):
sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult. And I ran out
and I bought the single, and I came home and
I ran home and I put it on the and
they must have made a mistake at the factory, because
a Lenny Welt song came on and the label was wrong.

(02:35):
So I ran back and I got it, and I
came back and I played it, and then I went
out and I got Highway sixty one and it was
all I played for weeks. Looked at the cover with
Bob with that satiny blue jacket and the Triumph motorcycle shirt,
and when I was a kid, Bob's voice somehow it

(02:56):
thrilled and scared me. It made me feel uh kind
of irresponsibly innocent, and it still does. It was, but
it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think
a fifteen year old kid in high school and New
Jersey had had in him at the time. Uh Dylan was.

(03:18):
He was a revolutionary man the way that the way
that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind. And
he showed us that just because the music he did,
you know, he showed us that just because the music

(03:38):
was innately physical did not mean that it was anti intellect.
He had the vision and the town to expand the
pop song until it could contain the whole world. He
invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He
broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve,

(03:59):
and he changed the face of rock and roll forever
and ever. Without Bob, Beatles wouldn't have made Sergeant Pepper,
Maybe the Beach Boys wouldn't have made Pets sound sex.
Pistols wouldn't have made God Say the Queen You Two
wouldn't have done Pride in the name a Love, Marvin
Gay would have done What's going on? Grand Master Flash

(04:20):
might not have done the Message, and the Count five
could not have done psychotic reaction. Yeah, and uh, there
never would have been in a group named the Electric Brunes,
that's for sure, you know. But the fact is that
that to this day, where great rock music is being made,

(04:45):
there is the shadow of Bob Dylan over and over
and over again, and Bob's own modern work has gone
unjustly underappreciated for having to stand in that shadow. If
young songwriter, if there was a young guy out there
writing Sweetheart like You, writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing

(05:09):
Every Grain of Sand, they'd be calling him the new
Bob Dylan. That was That's all the nice stuff that
I had wrote out to say about. You know. It
was about three months ago. I was watching TV and
the Rolling Stone special came on and Bob came on,

(05:29):
and he was in a real cranky mood, it seemed like,
and he was. He was kind of bitching and moaning
about how his fans don't know him and nobody knows him,
and and uh that they come up to him on
the street and kind of treat him like long lost
brother or something. And uh, speaking as a fan, I

(05:52):
guess when I was fifteen and I heard like a
Rolling Stone, I heard a guy that like I've never
heard before or since, a guy that had the guts
to take on the whole world and made me feel
like I had him too. And uh, maybe some people

(06:13):
mistook that voice to be saying somehow that you were
gonna do the job for him. And as we know,
as we grow older, that there isn't anybody out there
that can do that job for anybody else. So I'm
just here tonight to say to say thanks, to say
that I wouldn't be here without you, to say that

(06:35):
there isn't a soul in this room who does not
owe you their thanks, and uh, to steal a line
from one of your songs. Um, whether you like it
or not, he was the brother that I never had.
Congratulate H. After the break, we'll get to hear from

(07:04):
Bob Dylan himself on the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame Induction Vault. Thanks, Bruce, that's great. Well, I'll look

(07:34):
to thank the board of directors on the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame for abducting me. And UH, when
I say hello to Muhammad Ali, Uh, I'd like to
thank a couple of people who who are here tonight.
I don't who helped me out a great deal coming up.

(07:54):
A little Richard who's sitting over there. I don't think
I'd even started out without listening to the little Richard
y and Alan Nomax who was over there, similar too,
but I spent many nights uh at his apartment house.
Isn't even meeting all kinds of folk music people which
I never would have come in contact with. And I

(08:17):
want to thank Mike Love for not mentioning me and uh,
I play a lot of dates every year too, and uh, peace,
love and harmony is greatly important indeed, but so it's
forgiveness and we got to have that too well. Thanks

(08:59):
thanks for joining us this week's episode of Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame Induction Vault. For more on your
favorite inductees, to shop inducting merch or to plan your
trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, visit
rock Hall dot com plus Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame Induction Special on demand on HBO Max. Our executive
producers are Noel Brown, Shelby Morrison, and Esa Gurkey. Supervising

(09:22):
producer is Taylor Shakoin Research and archival assistants from Isabelle
Keeper and Shannon Herb. Thanks again for joining us. On
this week's episode of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Induction Vault. Induction Ball is a production of I heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For

(09:44):
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.