Hello, my name is Bern Barrel and today Bob Dylan turns 80.

Dylan has had the most amazing life and career over the last 80 years, but why even now does he still matter so much?

That is a question I put to some interesting fans of the man himself. This is what they had to say.

Clint Wells, musician and podcaster.

He so clearly was unconcerned with anything other than his own artistic expression and integrity.

In every era of his career, even when he was inventing the 60s, he always seemed a step or two ahead of all of us.

And he says, life's not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself.

That idea hit me like a bolt of lightning.

It's informed pretty much everything I do, anything from music to fatherhood.

And along the way, he wrote some of the greatest songs of all time.

I'm so glad to know that we walk the earth at the same time.

So, happy birthday, Bob, and thanks for all the magic.

Scarlett Rivera, musician, and Dylan Collaborator.

His lyrics have literally changed this world.

I mean, I believe.

I mean, to, if you take him out of the century as if he never existed,

I think that we would be in a different place.

He actually brought cultural change, intellectual change,

um, uh, social change, social justice change, uh, to millions of people throughout hundreds of countries of the world.

For an example, I just had a brief encounter with a young guy

renting a room in a friend of mine's apartment near the beach.

And she told him I was coming over, and he was all excited.

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