I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system.

The purpose of music is to elevate the spirit and inspire. Not to help push some product down your throat. It puts you in tune with your own existence. Sometimes you really don't know how you feel, but really good music can define how you feel... someone who's telling me where he's been that I haven't and what it's like there - somebody whose life I can feel.

Rod's a great singer. He's got a great voice, but there's no point to put a 30-piece orchestra behind him. I'm not going to knock anybody's right to make a living but you can always tell if somebody's heart and soul is into something, and I didn't think Rod was into it in that way.

All these people that I used to know, they're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters' wives.

Good and bad, I define these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow.

Watch waterfalls of pity roar, you feel to moan but unlike before, you discover that you'd just be one more person crying.

A brilliant 1989 album, Oh Mercy; some career retrospectives; and two albums of American folk songs, with just Bob Dylan and his guitar and harmonica. All that culminated in the Grammy-winning comeback album, Time Out of Mind (1997). Once again, just as Dylan seemed to be out of it, he was back at the top of his game.