“songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic... whatever the case, it wasn't that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambition to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk with.”

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.