一篇讲稿

摇滚名人堂每年在“表演者（performer）”这个类别下会评选五到七名新入驻的成员，而被提名的唯一必要条件是提名时间距离首张专辑发行25年以上。因此我们在2017年的入选名单上看到了已故21年的西岸饶舌英雄 Tupac Shakur，民谣皇后 Joan Baez，Grunge 的风格遗孤 Pearl Jam 等年代久远的名字。入选名人堂属于“终身成就奖”一类的犒赏，人们习惯把入驻摇滚名人堂的音乐人视为不朽的音乐神话缔造者，其意义在于永远铭记那些陪伴我们足够长久的声音，奖励对音乐工业做出过开拓性贡献的艺术家。

一年一度的名人堂授予仪式（Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony）有一个规定，给每一位当年入驻的艺术家颁奖的，必须是创作风格深受其影响的艺术家，于是 induction ceremony 上演了一幕幕活跃的年轻偶像表达对他们自己的偶像崇拜之情的生动画面。年轻的音乐人多会写一篇一本正经的致辞，从听到偶像的第一张唱片说起。相信我，他们的音乐有时难免落入矫情的陷阱，他们在这一晚的演讲，却大多朴素真诚，灵动深刻。

颁奖者和获奖者在创作上惺惺相惜，也不可避免地会有竞争关系。不过 induction ceremony 是个难得的相聚机会，大家互相颁个奖，念念故人，通常还会一起唱唱歌。披头士在1988年被选入摇滚名人堂，颁奖的是他们的滚石好兄弟Mick Jagger。那晚有只大团圆视频（http://v.yinyuetai.com/video/432748），是 Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr 送给大家的 I Saw Her Standing There。Paul 因为那个不太体面的原因，当晚并未出席。

同样在1988年被选入名人堂的还有 Bob Dylan,。这一年是他的第一张录音室专辑 Bob Dylan（1962）1962）发行的第26年。为 Dylan 颁奖的是已有 Born to Run 以及 Tunnel of Love等多张白金唱片傍身的美国好青年 Bruce Springsteen，以下是当晚演讲的原文。当中情谊，也许只有兄弟们之间才参的透。

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Speech

Bruce Springsteen, January 20, 1988

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind:“Like a Rolling Stone.” My mother—she was no stiff with rock and roll, she liked the music—sat there for a minute, then looked at me and said, “That guy can’t sing.” But I knew she was wrong. I sat there and I didn’t say nothing but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard. It was lean and it sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult.

I ran out and brought the single and ran home and played it, but they must have made a mistake in the factory because a Lenny Welch song came on. The label was wrong. So I ran back to the store, got the Dylan, and came back and played it. Then I went out and got Highway 61 revisited. That was all I played for weeks, looking at the cover with Bob in that satin blue jacket and the Triumph motorcycle shirt.

When I was a kid, Bob’s voice somehow thrilled and scared me, it made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent—it still does—when it reached down and touched what little worldliness a fifteen-year-old high school kid in New Jersey had in him at the time. Dylan was a revolutionary. Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because the music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual. He had the vision and the talent to make a pop song that contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve and changed the face of rock and roll forever.

Without Bob, the Beatles wouldn’t have made Sgt. Pepper, the Beach Boys wouldn’t have made Pet Sounds, the Sex Pistols wouldn’t have made “God Save the Queen,” U2 wouldn’t have done“Pride in the Name of Love,” Marvin Gaye wouldn’t have done What’s Going On?, the Count Five would not have done“Psychotic Reaction,”Grandmaster Flash might not have done“The Message,”and there never would have been a group named the Electric Prunes. To this day, wherever great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan. Bob’s own modern work has gone unjustly underappreciated because it’s had to stand in that shadow. If there was a young guy out there writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing “Every Grain of Sand,”they’d be calling him the New Bob Dylan.

About three months ago, I was watching The Rolling Stones Special on TV. Bob came on and he was in a real cranky mood. He was kind of bitching and moaning about how his fans come up to him on the street and treat him like a long-lost brother or something, even though they don’t know him. Now, speaking as a fan, when I was fifteen and I heard“Like a Rolling Stone,”I heard a guy who had the guts to take on the whole world and who made me feel like I had to too. Maybe some people misunderstood that voice as saying that somehow Bob was going to do the job for them, but, as we grow older, we learn that there isn’t anybody out there who can do that job for anybody else. So I’m just here tonight to say thanks, to say that I wouldn’t be here without you, to say that there isn’t a soul in this room who does not owe you his thanks, and to steal a line form one of your songs—whether you like it or not—“You was the brother that I never had.”