Bob Dylan Said It Was Hard to Describe Willie Nelson Without Sounding ‘Stupid or Irrelevant’

Willie Nelson’s new album, Dream Chaser, includes a song he wrote with Bob Dylan. The two artists have known each other for years and have worked together more than once. Recently, the highly private Dylan opened up about his feelings toward the other musician. While he had a lot to say, he admitted it wasn’t easy to talk about Nelson without sounding “irrelevant.”

Bob Dylan had high praise for Willie Nelson

Dylan and Nelson have known each other for years. When asked about how he felt about his longtime friend and collaborator, Dylan admitted it wasn’t easy to come to an answer.

“It’s hard to talk about Willie without saying something stupid or irrelevant, he is so much of everything,” he told The New Yorker.

Despite this, he had a lengthy and thoughtful answer about how he felt about Nelson.

“How can you make sense of him? How would you define the indefinable or the unfathomable? What is there to say? Ancient Viking Soul? Master Builder of the Impossible? Patron poet of people who never quite fit in and don’t much care to? Moonshine Philosopher? Tumbleweed singer with a PhD? Red Bandana troubadour, braids like twin ropes lassoing eternity?”

Dylan went on to describe him as a “cowboy apparition” with a “voice like a warm porchlight left on for wanderers who kissed goodbye too soon or stayed too long.” He added that he wasn’t sure that was enough to “explain anything” about Nelson.

“Personally speaking I’ve always known him to be kind, generous, tolerant and understanding of human feebleness, a benefactor, a father and a friend,” he said, adding, “He’s like the invisible air. He’s high and low. He’s in harmony with nature. And that’s what makes him Willie.”