“I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.”

American singer-songwriter, 69-year career

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter whose career has spanned 69 years. He is known as a major figure in popular culture and as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. In the early 1960s, he brought more intricate lyrical methods to folk music, drawing on the language and concerns of classic literature and poetry. His songs often take in political, social, and philosophical themes, and they pushed against pop conventions while speaking to the growing counterculture.