Taylor Swift Talks Travis Kelce’s Proposal, Addresses Selena Gomez, Ed Sheeran & Super Bowl Rumors – Hw

-We love you too much! -That was so nice! -We love you too much! –  -That was…   -The big — I know — You have to — We have to let her talk. Sorry. -No. It was so nice. That was — That was incredible. Wow. -That’s the loudest intro in the history of “The Tonight Show.” -You guys are the best. -They’re the best crowd.

-Everyone in here. -Yeah, they’re the best. -I feel like I’m back at the Eras Tour. -Yeah! I’m like — Come on. Uh, let’s talk “Life of a Showgirl” is out now. It went to number one. It is the biggest streaming day for any album released this year across all platforms, including Amazon, Apple, Spotify.

Every platform. Number one. Congratulations. -That’s all you guys. Thank you so much. -How — How does it feel to have this out in the world? -I mean, it’s — I — Yes. I’m so excited about, like — This was sort of a surprise and a secret that I had been carrying around for a year. And I was so excited.

It’s like — It’s like when you’re like, “I got a really great Christmas present for my brother.” But you have it for a year. And so it’s really exciting that, you know, they have opened the present and they are playing with the toy. And it’s fantastic. Like, this has just been, like, I think the most well-matched, um, era in terms of where my life was when I wrote it and then where I am now when it’s out in the world.

I feel exactly the same way as I did when I wrote and recorded these songs. It’s like — -Because sometimes you put out an album… -Oh, sometimes you write, like — “The Tortured Poets Department.” Like, the name didn’t lie. I was like — I wrote that song and I was just, like, miserable. -Yeah.

-And then when I put it out, I was like… “I’m so happy now.” So I just, like… Release week meant just, like, putting my phone in a drawer. You know? Like, I was just like — You know, this feels so special because, um, like, with my albums, I love to kind of, you know, showcase sort of, like, aspects of my personality that are in the extreme, right? Like, “Tortured Poets Department,” my last album, was really highlighting the facets of me that are like a writer that’s, like, earnest and stoic and raw and sort of, like, the sprawling part of it,

where the part of me that wants to just be like, “I’m just gonna write everything and give you everything I wrote,” right? Raw and, like, pain and just excruciating, um, detail. And then there’s this, like — That was the character of the poet, and this I wanted to be the character of the showgirl, which is, like, other aspects of a person’s personality, where you’re, like, funny and feisty and, like, having a blast and flirty and sort of tongue-in-cheek and a little scandalous and, like, friendly.

-Yes! Yes! We’re feeling all of it. By the way, I have to say — Because I’m getting blinded. Congratulations on your engagement. -Oh, thanks. Thanks. -Yeah. No big deal. Wow! -Yeah. -Can I see? -Yeah. Of course. -Oh, my Lord. Can we — Look… Taylor. -It’s crazy.

-Taylor, that is insanity. -That’s crazy! -Well, he put a lot of — He put a lot of work into that one. -He did. He did. And he had it for a really long time before he gave it to me, too. -He did? -Yeah. So he had it, like — He custom did this and designed it with this amazing jeweler who he made it with. -It’s gorgeous. Even the sides are beautiful.

-I know! I know! I look at it constantly. Like, it’s not… It doesn’t feel, um, in any way normal for me. I’m just sort of like, “Oh, man!” -Yeah. Yes. -Whoa! But it’s like — It’s more than that. It’s like — I just like — He’s just my favorite person I’ve ever met. No offense to everyone else. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-But the fact that this is the person that I get to hang out with every day forever is just like — That’s the whole thing of it. You look at that, and you’re like, “I get to hang out with him forever.” And this represents that. -That’s the win. Yeah. Well, I know that you did his podcast, “New Heights,” which, by the way, I have done.

And since I’ve done his podcast, they’ve won every game since I done — -You know what? Don’t think I didn’t notice that. -Thank you. -Yeah. -I don’t want a thank-you. I don’t want any credit. Let’s just act like it didn’t happen. -Yeah, let’s not jinx anything. Let’s sort of… But… -But it did happen. -It did happen.

-What are you gonna do? -We have to acknowledge certain superstitious things that cause a streak of winning. -Yes. -It’s gameday. My head is very much there. -Yes, you are. -So thank you for acknowledging that. -No, no, I was gonna bring up the podcast only because you did the podcast to announce and reveal your album title. -Yes.

-And then after that podcast, I think it was — I think I’m right about this. It might be another rumor about you. But he went, and you got engaged right after the podcast. -Yes. So, basically, um, I think for Travis, the podcast was just sort of, like, a distraction, sort of ruse to keep me not looking out the windows of the house.

-It was all happening. Was the backyard normal when you got there? -I don’t — Every time he does the podcast, it’s not like he, like, blacks out all the windows. The dra– There’s, like, fully, like, just blackout drapes on every single window of the whole house. -Yeah. -You’re like, “Honey, this is real secretive.

” -“He is so serious about this, and I really appreciate that.” Um, but then, um, afterward, I kind of realized, like, he’s walking around sort of nervous about the podcast. He’s like, “My heart is racing. I just really want… I know how much this means to you. Like, really want this to be what you hoped it would be.

” Because we’d been talking about doing the podcast and announcing the album. And he’s like, “My heart’s racing.” And I’ve never seen this dude nervous, ever. -Of course he’s not nervous about the podcast! -He’s professionally not a nervous person. -He’s like, “I wonder what questions I’m gonna ask you. I know one! I know one! I know one question that I’m gonna ask! I know the big one! But I can’t get to that yet!” [ Laughter ] -He was like, “Do you want to go and just walk around the backyard and have a glass of wine?”

I’m like, “I’m always gonna want to do that.” -That’s cool. -Um… -And then I realized exactly why all of the windows were curtained and why he was nervous. -Yeah. Look at this right there. -It was the best possible case scenario. Look at that! That’s what he was turning the backyard into. -It is gorgeous! -Like a secret garden oasis.

-It’s beautiful! Uh, you’ve had a giant, giant year. A lot of things to celebrate. You have the number-one album. You’ve got engaged. You also, uh, finally got the masters. You control all of your masters. -That’s… -Wow. -Thanks, guys. -That was hard work. That’s a lot of…

-The Roots know. Like, they… Ahmir knows. We’re all just out here in this crazy, insane music industry. And, um, the fact that this happened still feels absolutely outlandish to me because I kind of had made peace with the fact that I was going to re-record my music. I was going to try to replicate these songs as accurately and exactly as possible, and that was just what I was going to do.

Because nobody had ever given me the opportunity to bid on my work before. So I was used to feeling — Whenever I would see one of my music videos that I’m really proud of from those first six albums or when I would see, like, an album cover of mine or hear one of the older songs, I’d get so sad. And I had to sort of create this protective layer of, like, not really letting them in.

Like, not really — Like, “Oh. There’s one of my music videos. Don’t really look at it. Don’t get sad. Don’t let it ruin your day.” -Because you don’t own it. Someone else is getting — -“Because you don’t own it. You never will. And that’s — And you just have to make peace with that.” So it’s actually — I’ve had to reroute my entire absorption system of my own work to be just stoked whenever I see any of it.

And it is the best feeling in the world. Thank you, guys, for caring about this at all. -Now it’s like — listen to it all. -Yes. -Love it all. And every time you hear it, you go, “I remember where I was when I recorded it. I remember where I wrote it.” -Yes, and now you get to go back down memory lane…

-But then you also — That you re-recorded it was also historic and cool. -That was really fun. I had a blast. -That was awesome! -We had a time. -That was awesome, what you did! -It really was fun. And it was like — I know that these are not conversations that have typically been had outside of, you know — behind closed doors, conference room, contract negotiations sort of.

Inside the music-industry type, um, spaces. And the fact that when I did say to the fans like, “This is something I care about. I know — You don’t have to care about this.” It may not be something that you have really, like, absorbed yourselves in or, like — But the fact that the fans cared, it means the world to me.

I know that it was a new topic of conversation to share publicly. Every artist doesn’t have to care about owning their music, but I just wanted them to, like, know that this is a thing. And if you do care about it, negotiate to have it. -Get in there. And you’re already doing it. You’re inspiring… -Thanks.

-…hundreds of thousands of artists to do that. -Yeah. -And it’s really cool that you did that and that you were honest and let us in — kind of a little peek behind the curtain of what the business is. -Like, a huge peek behind the curtain. I was like, “Agh!” Like… -Agh! -All the monsters came out! Like, yeah.

-I thought we could do something kind of fun here. Because you’re Taylor Swift and you make a lot of headlines, there’s a lot written about you on the Internet every day. Some of it is very hard to tell what’s true. And I thought we could have a little fun with this. -All right. -Okay. So what I’m gonna do is — -Oh, my God.

-No, I’m going to read some rumors that I heard about Taylor Swift. -Wait. So what is this for? -It’s just because it looks cool. -What does it — Do you know what this does and when I am supposed to…? -Yes. You’re supposed to press it. Uh, wait. No, no. Not yet. But… I think you press it — When we’re all done, I’ll go back through every rumor and you press it if that one is true.

-So you’re gonna say things that are true and false, and you’re gonna — Are you — -No. -Is this like two truths and a lie where you guess? -Kind — Yes. Oh, I can do that. -Yeah. -Oh, I like that. -So we’re basically playing two truths and a lie. -I heard that — Yes. Yes. One of these is true. -One of these things are true, but everything else is false.

-That’s correct. All right, here we go. Taylor Swift, you turned down the Super Bowl Halftime Show because the NFL wouldn’t allow you to own your performance footage. Okay. We’re gonna go through — there’s five rumors. -[ Laughs ] -Interesting. Rumor two. [ Laughter ] Your close friend, Ed Sheeran, learned about your engagement like everyone else did, on Instagram.

[ Laughter ] That would be great, if that’s true. R-r-r-rumor three. In your speech at Selena Gomez’s wedding, you joked that Selena beat you to the altar. [ Laughter ] That’s funny. And I know you — you’re funny. I could see that happening. Rumor four — you’ve been spotted walking a mystery dog in Florida.

[ Laughter ] This is true. This is on the Internet. You were walking a dog that’s not your dog, and it’s a mystery dog. And by the way, I think that might be the true one, but who knows. [ Laughter ] Travis Kelce can be heard harmonizing on “Opalite.” [ Laughter ] All right, I said five rumors about — about you.

One of them is true. -And you are guessing now which one you think is the true one. And what happens if that is not true? -If I’m correct — -Do I get to, like, throw a marker or something like that? -No, no, no. How about this? What if, if it’s true, then you hit the buzzer? -Okay. -Right? So — -And I just sit here.

-Well, hopefully, I’ll get the right one. What if I’m correct? -Okay. Yeah, yeah. You could — You could get it first. -Or we can run through the rum– Let’s do that, and then we could maybe run through the rumors and see why they’re rumors. -This is the most incredible… -What are the rules of this game? You’ve never played Two Truths and a Lie? -No.

-So, you basically guess — -But I don’t know if there are two truths. I think there’s one truth. -Because there’s one truth and a bunch of falses. -This is called Four Lies and a Truth. -Okay, so I should have this if it’s false. -Okay. All right, hit that if it’s false. -There’s more of a chance that it’s gonna be false if there’s one truth in there.

Then there’s more — And I love a buzzer! -Okay. [ Laughter ] You can take this home with you. All right. -And if it’s true, I — I’m sorry I’ve taken this over. -No, I love this. No, this — -If it’s true, I could say, “That’s true.” [ Laughter ] -All right, all right. The name of this game is called That’s True. -Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Or you could call it That’s So True, which is my favorite Gracie Abrams song. And then you could play it with other people! -Okay. Okay. That’s So True. -Okay, cool, cool, cool. -All right. I’m gonna say the rumor that I think is true — Super Bowl — I don’t think that you would about footage or something.

That’s too — You don’t care about that. -So you — -Wait. Hold on. I’m going to say my truth. [ Laughter ] I think my truth — Ed Sheeran is funny. -Wait, wait. -But I think you’re closer to him. -When do I get to touch this? -Hold on. Not yet. I didn’t guess — When I say, “This is the truth.” -You’re working through this in your inner monologue that we’re hearing a little bit of.

-Correct. -Okay. I love this. -I’m working my inner monologue out loud in front of everybody. -Yeah, yeah. It’s like, you know… -It’s not mystery dog. -Your process is your process. -It’s not mystery dog. Travis can be heard harmonizing. I don’t think he would — we would want to do that. I think he would want you to have your moment to shine.

Um, the Selena Gomez one, I feel like that’s funny. And I feel like you say, “Hey, you beat me to the altar.” I’m gonna say Selena Gomez is true, that you were at Selena Gomez’s wedding and you joked, “Hey, you beat me to the altar.” [ Buzzer ] -It’s false. [ Laughter ] -What is the rules?! Wait.

What are the rules of the game? The game is not It’s False! The game is — It is — What is the game called? -I don’t know. [ Laughter ] -Sorry. That’s False? -Yeah. -So you never said that. -Well, I — so, I got to see her be the most elegant, gorgeous, not only bride but just vision that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as her on her wedding day. -I love her.

-And she deserves all of this happiness. Benny — He is him. -The best. -He is so funny. -He’s the best. -He’s the best. Um, so I did make a speech, but I actually made a point not to mention anything about my engagement. Nobody wants you to be like, “Hey, I know this is your wedding day, but, like, [gibberish] [ Laughter ] You know, like — I was like, “Don’t mention it.

” -Yeah, it’s not about you. -Maybe turn it around. [ Laughter ] -Like, it’s all — -Do you know what I mean? -This is her day. -I did do some light teasing about the way that we used to dress in 2008, the year that we met. Because we met when we were teenagers in 2008. It was quite a year. [ Laughter ] Let me tell you, it was the year of deep, deep v-necks.

-Was it — was it deep? -I just go into, like… Did I just go into, like, the Gilded Age? -Ooh! -I love “The Gilded Age.” -Me too. “The Gilded Age.” -Don’t even get me started. Carrie Coon’s character. -Carrie Coon! -It was the year of aggressively colorful skinny jeans. [ Laughter ] Everyone was walking around saying things were amazeballs.

[ Laughter ] Mrs. Astor hated it. -Oh, my God. That nailed it right there. -So, basically, Selena used to — like, her favorite outfit back then was, like, a very long tank top, skinny jeans. -They know it. -But, like, a tiny little vest. Like, a tiny — the smallest vest and Chucks. And that was her, like, uniform of that year.

And mine was the — I just always looked like I was, like, late for the cowboy-themed junior prom. [ Laughter ] And so I talked a little bit about 2008. I talked about, you know, how happy I am for her and how just beautiful it’s been to get to be a part of her life. But I did not make it about me. -Okay, good.

All right, then I’m going to have my second guess here. And I’m going to say, I think it’d be funny if Ed Sheeran learned about your engagement on Instagram. -That’s so true. [ Laughter, cheers, applause ] ♪♪ -Oh, no! -I have a perfect explanation. -Oh, no. -He doesn’t have a phone! [ Laughter ] He doesn’t have a phone.

-Didn’t he wrote a whole album about an old phone that he had or something? -But he doesn’t have one that works. -That’s true. That is true. -So he doesn’t have a phone. And this is, like, one thing I love about him. It’s very eccentric. Love it. [ Laughter ] But when I’m going through b

eing like, “Hey, like –” You know, “Hey…” -All my peeps. -“Who should we FaceTime?” I’m going through my texts and being like, “Who have I texted within the last month of my life,” and he just wasn’t there. Because you have to, like — he’s — you have to, like — -How do you get ahold of him, the Bat Signal? -You have to e-mail him. And then if you want to set up a FaceTime, he has to find an iPad.

They have to give it to him like he’s a child that they give the iPad to. -Yes. And he watches an episode of “Bluey.” And then… -This is one of my absolute favorite people on the planet. -I know! That’s why I didn’t guess that. -And then when the news came out, I was like, “Oh, my God, we forgot to call Ed!” [ Laughter ] “Oh, no.” -That’s my favorite. -He’s like family.

-Like, I love him. -Of course. -But he doesn’t have a phone. [ Laughter ] -So that is the true one. So you didn’t you didn’t turn down the Super Bowl because of performance footage? -No. -Okay. -No, no. Well, here’s the thing. Like, Jay-Z has always been very good to me. -Yes. -Our teams are really close. Like, it’s like they sometimes will call and say, ”

How does she feel about…?” And that’s not, like, an official offer or an official, like — or a conference room conversation. -It’s just a feeling-out. -Our teams are really close. “How does she feel about it, in general?” And we’ve been — we’re always able to tell him the truth, which is that, like, I am in love with a guy who does that sport on that actual field.

Like, that is violent chess. That is gladiators without swords. That is dangerous. I am — The whole season, I am locked in on what that man is doing on the field. Can you imagine if, like, he’s out there every single week, like, putting his life on the line, doing this very dangerous, very high-pressure, high-intensity sport, and I’m like, “I wonder what my choreo should be?” -“Oh, my gosh, honey.

Let me have one thing! Let me have one thing.” -I think we should do two verses of “Shake It Off,” into “Blank Space,” into “Cruel Summer” would be great. Like, it’s just like, this is — And this is nothing to do with Travis. He would love for me to do it. I’m just too locked in. -Good. -Like, yeah. -Love hearing that. All right.

And then, uh… Travis is not harmonizing on “Opalite.” -He’s not, no. [ Laughter ] -And you’ve not been spotted walking a mystery dog in Florida? That was an odd one. -I have never walked a dog in Florida or maybe ever. [ Laughter ] -But the Internet is saying that you have. That’s why I wrote it down. -I know.

I didn’t do that, though. -It’s not true. All right, there you go. -They should be able to run free. [ Laughter ] -No, they should — -Let ’em free. Let ’em loose. They come back. Don’t they come back? That’s the cool thing about dogs. -All right. [ Laughter ] -You just call them, and they just come back. They come back to you. -That’s not true at all.

And I’m gonna call — -If you love your dog… -Let him free? That’s not true at all. Let it roam? Let it roam. -It’ll come back to you. -All right. We’re gonna take a commercial break. In the meantime, I’m going to call Ed Sheeran and say hi to him, check in. Guys, thank you for doing that. More with Taylor Swift when we come back.

QQ4 Bob Dylan and Keith Richards have been close friends for nearly 40 years. The friendship began on a live television program in November of 1986 in the 11 seconds after Bob Dylan called Keith Richards music derivative on camera. Keith Richard’s response to that assessment, one sentence said without anger, without performance, with the specific directness of a man who has nothing to prove and knows it made Bob Dylan laugh.

Then made Bob Dylan go quiet. then made Bob Dylan say two words that people who know Bob Dylan say he almost never said to anyone. This is the story of those 11 seconds and the 40 years that followed them. The program was a live music interview special broadcast on an American network on the evening of November 3rd, 1986. The format was simple.

Two musicians, a host, an hour of conversation about music and the state of it. The producers had assembled the pairing of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards with the specific calculation of television producers who understand that two people with equally strong and potentially incompatible views about what music is and what it should do will produce better television than two people who agree about everything.

The calculation was correct, though not in the way the producers had anticipated. Bob Dylan was 45 years old in November of 1986. Bob Dylan had released Empire Burlesque the previous year and had been on the road for most of the intervening period as part of the True Confessions tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Bob Dylan was in November of 1986 in one of the most prolific and restless phases of a career that had consisted almost entirely of prolific and restless phases. A career that had moved through folk, rock, country, gospel, and back again, that had been declared finished at least six times by the music press, and at each time continued with the serene indifference of a river to the opinions of people standing on its banks.

Bob Dylan had been redefining what music could be. Since 1962, Bob Dylan had invented and reinvented himself so many times that reinvention had become his defining characteristic, not in the superficial sense of a performer changing costumes, but in the deeper sense of a musician who had never allowed his work to settle into a form that could be anticipated or categorized from the outside.

Bob Dylan understood influence and originality and the relationship between them better than almost anyone alive in 1986. Bob Dylan had spent 24 years thinking carefully and specifically about where music came from and where music was going and what it meant that those two things were always in constant conversation with each other.

Keith Richards was 42 years old in November of 1986. Keith Richards had been playing guitar professionally since 1962. Keith Richards had built a career on a foundation of American blues and rhythm and blues. A foundation that Keith Richards had studied with the systematic devotion of someone who understood that the tradition he was building on was not incidental to the music he was making, but essential to it.

that you could not understand what Keith Richards did without understanding where Keith Richards had come from and what Keith Richards had been listening to since he was a teenager in Dartford with American Import Records and a secondhand guitar and no teacher except the recordings themselves. Keith Richards had never pretended otherwise. Keith Richards had in fact spent considerable energy across his career making the lineage explicit, naming the artists, citing the recordings, insisting on the acknowledgement of influence that the mainstream music

industry had a long history of suppressing or ignoring or crediting to the wrong people. If anything, Keith Richards was more transparent about his sources than most musicians of his generation. Keith Richards had always said openly that the Rolling Stones came directly from the blues, that Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and the specific tradition of the Mississippi Delta were not background influences, but foundational ones.

The music Keith Richards made was in direct and sustained conversation with that tradition, something Keith Richards considered not a limitation, but a responsibility and a form of respect. The interview had been running for 8 minutes when the host asked Bob Dylan about the current state of rock and roll.

Bob Dylan answered with the density and the indirection that characterized Bob Dylan’s responses to direct questions, turning the question over, approaching it from an unexpected angle, finding his way to what he actually thought through a series of observations that moved like a river rather than a road. Bob Dylan was not a straightforward interview subject.

Bob Dylan had been asked about rock and roll in hundreds of interviews across 24 years and had developed the habit of treating the question as an invitation to think out loud rather than a request for a prepared position. The producer Gerald Sherman said afterward that in the first 8 minutes of the interview, he had been slightly anxious, not because anything was going wrong, but because nothing was going anywhere in particular yet.

The interview had the feeling of two conversations happening simultaneously. Bob Dylan’s internal one and the external one visible to the cameras. And Gerald Sherman was not certain in those first eight minutes that the two conversations would converge into something. Bob Dylan talked about influence. Bob Dylan talked about originality.

Bob Dylan talked about the difference between music that absorbed a tradition and transformed it and music that absorbed a tradition and reproduced it. And then Bob Dylan made his assessment. And then Bob Dylan said with the precision of a man making a musical assessment rather than a personal judgment that the Rolling Stones work, and Bob Dylan was specific, naming Keith Richards as the guitarist whose approach he was discussing was derivative in a way that Bob Dylan found limiting.

Bob Dylan said it without hostility. Bob Dylan said it as a technical observation about the relationship between source material and the work that came from it. Bob Dylan said that Keith Richards played the blues the way the blues had already been played, rather than using the blues as a starting point for something that had not yet been played.

Keith Richards had been listening to this with the specific attention Keith Richards gave to things being said about music by people who knew music. Keith Richards did not interrupt. Keith Richards did not shift in his chair or display any of the visible signals of a person preparing a defensive response. Keith Richards listened to Bob Dylan’s complete observation all the way to its conclusion without interrupting and without displaying any visible signal of preparing a response.

Then Keith Richards said one sentence. The sentence was not a rebuttal. The sentence did not defend Keith Richards music or argue for its originality or challenge Bob Dylan’s characterization of what the blues meant in the context of rock and roll. The sentence was something else entirely, something that required a specific kind of confidence to say.

The confidence of a person who has spent long enough thinking about the same things as the person they are talking to that they can locate the exact point where their thinking diverges and say something useful about that point rather than simply defending their own position. The sentence acknowledged everything Bob Dylan had said, the assessment, the distinction Bob Dylan was drawing, the specific musical concern underlying the observation, and then turned it 90°.

Keith Richards took Bob Dylan’s own framework, the one Bob Dylan had used to analyze Keith Richards relationship to the blues tradition, and applied it back to Bob Dylan’s work with the same precision Bob Dylan had used to apply it to Keith Richards. Spare aimed. The sentence asked Bob Dylan something about Bob Dylan’s own music, about the relationship between Bob Dylan’s sources and Bob Dylan’s output that Bob Dylan had not been asked on television before.

The sentence did not attack. The sentence illuminated. Bob Dylan laughed. The laugh was not the polite laugh of someone responding to a joke. The laugh was the involuntary laugh of someone who has been genuinely surprised. The specific kind of surprise that a person of exceptional intelligence experiences when someone else’s intelligence exceeds their expectations.

Bob Dylan laughed for 4 seconds. Then Bob Dylan stopped laughing. Then Bob Dylan was quiet for 3 seconds in the way that Bob Dylan was quiet when Bob Dylan was thinking rather than performing thought. Then Bob Dylan said, “You’re right.” The producer in the booth, a man named Gerald Sherman, who had been working in television for 14 years, said afterward that in 14 years of live television production, he had never heard Bob Dylan say those two words in a public forum.

Gerald Sherman said he had worked with Bob Dylan on two previous occasions and had observed Bob Dylan in numerous other contexts and that you’re right was not a phrase that Bob Dylan deployed easily or often because Bob Dylan had spent 24 years being right about music in ways that other people eventually caught up with. And the experience of being right ahead of everyone else does not generally produce a man who says you’re right readily when someone else makes a point.

The host of the program, a journalist named Patricia Wells, who had been interviewing musicians for 12 years, said afterward that the 11 seconds between Bob Dylan’s assessment and Bob Dylan saying, “You’re right,” were the most extraordinary 11 seconds of television she had been present for. Patricia Wells said that what she witnessed in those 11 seconds was not a debate or a confrontation or a celebrity exchange of competing opinions.

Patricia Wells said what she witnessed was one musician recognizing another musician as an equal, which was in the specific context of Bob Dylan in 1986, not something that happened in public very often. The interview continued for another 42 minutes after those 11 seconds. The conversation between Bob Dylan and Keith Richards in the remaining 42 minutes was described by everyone who watched it as fundamentally different from the first 8 minutes.

The host, Patricia Wells, who had been conducting music interviews for 12 years and understood the difference between the performance of conversation and actual conversation, said that at approximately the 9-minute mark, something shifted in the studio. That the formal interview, architecture dissolved, and what replaced it was something less structured and more genuine.

Bob Dylan and Keith Richards talked about influence and originality and the blues and what it meant to build on a tradition without being consumed by it. They talked about specific recordings and specific musicians with the specificity of two people who had spent their entire adult lives thinking about these things and rarely found another person who had thought about them with equivalent care.

They talked about where music came from and where music was going and whether those two questions were actually one question or two. Patricia Wells said afterward that she had asked approximately four questions in the remaining 42 minutes because Bob Dylan and Keith Richards did not require questions. They required only a room and a camera and the shared understanding that what they were saying together was worth recording carefully.

She said it was the best interview she had ever conducted and that she had conducted the smallest part of it. After the program, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards were in the corridor outside the studio when the host Patricia Wells passed them. Patricia Wells said she did not stop because she did not want to interrupt.

She observed them for approximately 30 seconds from a distance. She said they were talking with the ease of people who had known each other for years rather than people who had met for the first time 2 hours earlier. She said that something had shifted between them during the broadcast that the broadcast had made permanent rather than temporary.

She continued down the corridor and did not look back. She said in her account of that evening that she had decided in that moment not to interrupt the conversation because some conversations are more valuable than any question a journalist might ask and that the conversation she had observed for 30 seconds in the corridor outside the studio was one of them.

She had been a music journalist for 12 years. She recognized the difference. Bob Dylan and Keith Richards have maintained their friendship across four decades. They have appeared together at various events, most significantly at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, where people who were present described them as inseparable for most of the evening, occupying the same corner of the backstage area and talking with the concentrated attention of people who only have a limited amount of time together and intend to use it

well. Bob Dylan has spoken about Keith Richards in interviews with the specific thoughtful care that Bob Dylan reserves for musicians whose work Bob Dylan considers genuinely important rather than merely culturally prominent. Keith Richards has spoken about Bob Dylan in similar terms with the specific respect of someone who recognizes in another person a commitment to music that goes deeper than career.

Neither Bob Dylan nor Keith Richards has made a public statement specifically about how the friendship began or about the November 1986 interview. Bob Dylan has not mentioned the 11 seconds. Keith Richards has not mentioned the sentence. The interview exists in the archive. The 11 seconds are there. The laugh is there. The two words are there.

What is also there for anyone who watches the interview from its beginning and pays attention to the shift that happens at the 9-minute mark is the specific moment when two people who thought they were appearing on a television program discovered they were actually talking to each other. What Keith Richards said in that one sentence has never been officially reported.

The people who were in the studio that evening, Gerald Sherman, Patricia Wells, the floor crew, the two camera operators, the makeup artist who was watching from the side of the set, have described the sentence in consistent terms. They have described its effect. They have described Bob Dylan’s laugh and Bob Dylan’s silence and Bob Dylan’s two words.

They have not repeated the sentence itself in the specific understanding that the sentence was said between two musicians on a television program and that its power resided in the specific context of that exchange and would not survive removal from it intact. What can be said is this. Keith Richards said something to Bob Dylan about Bob Dylan’s music that used Bob Dylan’s own observation about Keith Richards as its starting point and arrived somewhere that Bob Dylan had not anticipated.

Keith Richards turned Bob Dylan’s assessment 90° and showed Bob Dylan something about the music they had both spent their lives making that Bob Dylan recognized immediately as true. And Bob Dylan said, “You’re right.” Two words said by Bob Dylan in public on live television in 1986 to Keith Richards in response to a single sentence Keith Richards had said about music.

Two words that Gerald Sherman, who had worked with Bob Dylan on two previous occasions, said he had never heard Bob Dylan say in a public forum. Two words that Patricia Wells, who had been interviewing musicians for 12 years, said were the most significant two words she had heard in those 12 years. Not because of their content, but because of who said them and what it cost to say them and what it meant that Keith Richards had produced them in 11 seconds from a conversation that began with Bob Dylan calling Keith Richards’s music derivative. And Keith Richards and

Bob Dylan have been close friends for nearly 40 years. The sentence did its work in 11 seconds on the evening of November 3rd, 1986. The work has been ongoing ever since. If this story moved you, subscribe and leave a comment below. Have you ever said something to someone that turned a potential disagreement into an unexpected and lasting connection? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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