Taylor Swift’s Rise to Global Superstar: UNSEEN Interviews (ET Vault Unlocked) –  Hw

tonight hi ET Taylor Swift all her eras as seen by ET I’m so excited how did this happen how did my life get this awesome we open the ET Vault to reveal neverbe seen interviews how do you just contain yourself from her country singer start this song I wrote in 15 minutes to securing her status as a global super star it’s a long it makes me want to raise the bar on the music I’m making how Taylor found her voice along the way changing the music business forever music is the way that complex emotions

become more simple plus stories behind her biggest hits you know what that didn’t work out but it was worth something on set of her acting roles I got killed and inside her relationship with Unexpected Love Travis Kelce I never say never to anything when it comes to love what’s next and how she’s really just getting started how lucky am I Entertainment Tonight presents ET Vault unlocked Taylor Swift maximalism it’s just a lot of a lot we’re celebrating all things Miss Americana welcome everyone to Entertainment Tonight we’re unlocking

Taylor’s trajectory from her fearless start to her current billionaire era are you ready for it it’s a love story we are never ever ever sh it sh it I write songs about my feelings like that’s my job red in aisle 4 we’ve got cameras um ET you have the exclusive you have everything everyone wants sure we all know Taylor can write a hit song she’s been doing it consistently for almost 20 years we also know she’s an expert Storyteller who started out country tears and swiftly conquered the pop and indie rock charts just because she could

another thing we know she’s a pro at Reinventing herself while still staying true to who she is like at the end of the day yeah you have a career yeah you’re in headlines whatever you’re living a life and I live in a world where my grandkids are going to get to Google what I wore today you got to live a life you got to live a life you’re going to be proud of but did you know she’s the first musician to hit billionaire status solely on the earnings of her songs and performances no side hustles and she’s basically

broken every other record in the book really yes how’d I do that well let’s just say it took a lot of hard work and a very clear Vision we can leave the Christmas light up till January this is our place we made the rules I wouldn’t want to do this if I didn’t have 100% control over what I wear what my message is what my lyrics are what songs I sing on stage the set list the flow of the show I I wouldn’t want to do this if if it was up to somebody else to decide that because um if we succeeded and we had a amazing

tour it would be somebody else’s Vision that got us there and if it failed I’d be really mad I’d be like why didn’t you let me make those choices so let’s break it down by the numbers starting with Taylor’s newest release straight from the tortured poet Department the tortured poets Department sold 2 6 million copies in its opening week welcome to the ays tour her current ays tour is taking in over $17 million per show and is projected to earn over $2 billion in ticket sales Stars including Tom Cruz Ashton and Mila Paul McCartney

Liam Hemsworth even Prince William George and Charlotte have been in attendance helping to make it the highest grossing concert tour of all time I love it when my lyrics get quoted places like when I go on someone’s Facebook page and it’s a fan and they quoted some one of my lyrics it’s such a cool compliment but the Adoration of swifties isn’t the only love thrown Taylor’s way Taylor Swift Taylor Swift Taylor Swift at 19 she became the youngest person ever to win the country music association’s Entertainer of the Year

award I will never forget this moment because in this moment everything that I have I’ve Ever Wanted has just happened to me you can’t take them all I can’t take them all you you can’t to them all yeah I can I’ve dreamed about things like this and nights like this but I didn’t think that they actually happened in real life over her career Taylor’s racked up 14 Grammys 40 American Music Awards 39 Billboard Music Awards and 23 Video Music Awards just to name a few I don’t kind of operate under the attitude of oh well you know I’ve won awards

before of course I’m going to continue you to get nominated for them and that keeps you in perspective people are always like you know talking about people who get a big head and they they lose perspective and they just all of a sudden are so hard to work with and they throw tantrums and they’re like whatever I think that’s when you stop realizing that this could go away but it’s not all hard work and no play for Taylor She’s also living her best life in love with boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and then there’s the

biggest pop store in the world Taylor Swift time aine’s 2023 person of the year has also proven herself to be a Savvy businesswoman when her former record label sold her master recordings against her wishes she took back her power and re-recorded Taylor’s version massively outselling the original recordings I still remember the first fall of snow and how it glened as it fell and the BMA goes too tellor St we wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you the fans because I wouldn’t be able to

re-record my albums if it weren’t for you the fans are the people who turned it into something very empowering where when they they were just saying to me over and over again we want to listen to your versions if you redo it that’s what we’ll listen to so if they hadn’t if they hadn’t done that I don’t think I’d be having this amazing exciting experience it’s no wonder NYU offers a class all about analyzing Taylor’s [Music] career but before Taylor became well Taylor Swift she was just a kid with a dream guitar

I am happy I think when I started playing guitar and writing songs that’s when I realized that it was what I loved more than anything I was 12 this is a song I wrote yesterday and it’s about a girl who’s just different [Music] forever those Home Videos in Miss Americana are everything Taylor was named after her parents favorite singer James Taylor she grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania but later begged her parents to move to Nashville they saw that it wasn’t just a phase they just they just jumped they just

moved across the country at 14 Taylor became the youngest person ever to sign a music publishing deal with Sony in 2016 she dropped her debut album and that’s when we first met her backstage at the CMAs the album came out last week and it’s just it’s so exciting for me cuz I got to write every song on that album your new single is Tim McGraw correct yes my single’s called Tim mcra Tim MC think it’s about to go into top 10 on radio and um you know it’s crazy to me because this song I wrote in 15 minutes the first time I heard that song was was the

demo of it I heard that she she had written it in math class tayor almost wanted an ACM award and I I have one now it’s really [Applause] exciting this performance is a performance I’ve been dreaming up since I was about 10 you have said no you have home meeting with the producer of the show and I said would it be crazy to have it rain inside and he was like done yes even then Taylor was a creative Mastermind and at 18 years old she knew how to deliver was that on audio interference you want me to repeat cuz I

was rambling too and I’d rather get a clean one I looked in the camera sorry I always do that and she wasn’t just clever she was kind you look nice today I like your outfit nice me to meet you how are you awesome she was also ahead of her time connecting with her fans online long before Facebook Twitter or Instagram honestly Myspace is what kind of helped me build to this level I really like to put stuff about who I am as a person because that’s what my space I thought was supposed to be for so it was no surprise that her

sophomore album Fearless went straight to number one and stayed there so long it still holds the record for a female countryart artist Taylor Swift is this a turning point right now in your life you know you make an album and you write songs about real people and you tell your stories and you put yourself out there and I don’t think I ever imagined that the songs that I wrote In My Bedroom would end up getting me this yeah long story short that was just one of the secrets behind Taylor Swift success and she wasn’t shy about

sharing it all if I talk to you for more than 5 minutes I’m probably going to write a song about you write on my own songs and so I’m inspired mostly by Boys honestly so I’m not [Music] princessy t but her rise to stardom definitely came with highs Taylor Swift and Lowe’s thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA award yo Taylor I I’m really happy for you I’m let you finish but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time at the time I didn’t know they were booing him doing that I thought that they were booing me the whole crowd

booing is a pretty formative experience Taylor was 19 when all that went down B but what’s Sweeter Than Fiction is that four months later she won her first four Grammys and in her next chapter of Music 20-year-old Taylor had a lot to say well the album is called speak now for me this album is more personal than anything I’ve ever put out because um the last two years have been really [Music] [Applause] intense I don’t know exactly how I feel about something until I write that song about it and that’s how I know music has

helped me so much in just uh getting through life the name red came from um the idea that you know there are really that color is a really bold color that to me represents really bold emotions do any of the guys ever ask you in the beginning hey are if this doesn’t work out are you going to write about me no they say that in the ending they do yeah they they say that when we’re breaking up and they’re like you better not write a song about this and I’m like oh I won’t and then I [Music] do call it what you want but some fans

favorite songs are believed to be inspired by the men from Taylor’s past we’re looking at you Jak gyllen Hall John Mayor and Harry Styles and while Taylor has always dropped Clues like an airplane necklace or a scarf you won’t catch her naming name I just feel like that’s the one thing I have though everybody like takes everything else that that happens in my life and like makes it their own thing so you’ll never tell us who it’s about probably not no maybe in a memoir when I’m [Music] 80 I mean I think I I I think I feel

things intensely I think I write about things in a really intense way and that’s kind of how I take it out looking back on my career there have been so many different musical phases yes from country to pop to folk to a tortured poet I think I I became really obsessed with poetry when I was in grade school and then took it further and be became a songwriter Taylor admits she loves a sad song and there are some heart- wrenchers on this most recent album that swifties believe are about singer Maddie Healey and her

ex-boyfriend of six years Joe Allen so [Music] long but Taylor also wants to be clear that with this record the chapter closed there’s nothing left to avenge and no scores to settle this life that I live where you write songs about things that even the things that don’t work out it it’s kind of like a justification system you’re like you know what that didn’t work out but it was worth something cuz it made me feel something of course we all know Taylor’s Latest Inspiration boyfriend and Kansas City Chief’s tight

end Travis [Applause] [Music] Kelsey that line from one of Travis’s favorite Taylor songs is rumored to come from this moment back in 2016 long before they ever met Taylor Swift Ariana Grande Katy Perry Taylor Swift would be the kiss and then ktie what’s the last one Flash Forward eight years and sources tell us Taylor and Travis are doing amazing and their loved ones see an engagement coming sooner than later it would be nice to have a family I think that it would be wonderful to to end up with the right person well Taylor

and Travis were totally giving wedding Vibes when he made his surprise appearance on stage with her in London wearing a top hat and tails London’s always an amazing City you know I got to go support of course fans are convinced there are invisible strings tying these two together proof that they’re meant to be long there was some invisible first the numerology combine his jersey number 87 and her favorite number 13 and yep that adds up to 100 I like a guy with like a witty banter kind of sense of humor because after a while

in a relationship you’re going to run out of things to talk about so when you do it’s good to have somebody who can laugh about nothing and talk about nothing and just pull jokes out of midair like a best friend yeah she’s so amazing at what she does um and to find that creativity to see where she likes to pull things from and just really how she listens to music is is very eye openening to me9 both Travis and Taylor were born in 1989 and then there’s this the first lyrics on Taylor’s 2017 reputation [Music] album that killer reference lines with

his Instagram handle killer trap and then there’s this signature move they’ve both been making for years you guys both are so busy how do you make it all work is it just you prioritize what’s important we’re both uh very uh career-driven I think we both love what we do um and uh you know any chance that I can you know show my support to her and knowing that she’s shown me all the supporting the world throughout the season um it’s just been an amazing experience you know getting not [Music] I never say never to anything when it

comes to love I’m really attracted to sparkly things and sparkly dresses yeah Taylor can polish up real nice and while her style has evolved over the eras one trend has stuck whether it’s a mini dress bodysuit or knee high boots Taylor knows how to serve up the Shimmer I love dressing up you know so this is so much fun for me it’s big and it’s really heavy it’s like 30 lbs it’s like walking around in a bag of rocks but I’m I’m really excited to be wearing this bag of rocks this is Tiffany’s and these are all diamonds set in Platinum I’m wearing

jewelry that is like so much more expensive than my house I think my gone through lots of phases with fashion whether it’s you know like cowboy boots and dresses and curly hair and then I got bangs and then it’s just like I think one of my favorite things about fashion is how much you can change it there was the country glamour phase then fairy tale Vibes and old Hollywood I take a lot of inspiration from um fashion throughout the decades two of Taylor’s go-to makeup looks a cat eye sharp enough to kill a man and that red lip classic thing that

we like either do a heavy eye or a red lip never both or else it’ll just you’ll scare people T’s trick to keeping the lipstick in place apply block with a tissue dab with some powder then reapply I just like red a lot more now than my album’s called red I’m drawn to it more Taylor has made an art form out of coordinating her outfits with her album covers we’ve seen it with reputation lover and midnight but sleuthy Swifty think that in the months leading up to the tortured poets Department Taylor was secretly dropping track names with her fashion

choices there was the Amy hair clip the robin shoes the Cassandra handbag and her white dress and black gloves at the Grammys well it was kind of giving the [Music] albatross Taylor Swift gave us literal movie star vibes having a fling with Scott Eastwood in 2014’s Wildest Dreams music video but in reality Taylor’s Hollywood dreams already came true 5 years [Music] earlier I got killed and uh what kind of injury is this this is a sta wound I hate you I’m always it’s wet and cold and I’m like shaking but the the trick to being a

dead body is you can’t you can’t move and you can’t breathe and you can’t like you’ve got to keep that stare at one position it’s hilarious yeah there was a body and a crime back in 2009 when Taylor slayed her acting debut guest starring on CSI you don’t get it do you my life is over I’m obsessed with the show it’s absolutely my favorite show I’ve seen every single episode of every season acting is one of those things that I’ve always loved you know I started out in children’s theater I’ve always chosen things very carefully and I’m going to

continue to do that that why so glum The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow getting to host SNL was such a thrill Hey Joe I’m doing real well tonight I’m in my monologue Taylor came up with the whole concept for her tongue and cheek monologue song yes Joe as in Jonas and we love seeing Tay Flex her comedic chops while doing impressions of Kate Goslin I’m doing lots of press Shakira and casew in a Twilight parody a nod to Taylor’s vinbo Taylor lner say it out loud Frankenstein the two Taylor struck up a friendship while playing High

School sweethearts in the romcom Valentine’s Day which marked ta’s first time in a feature film oh my gosh I totally love him and I’m crazy about her I got to meet so many cool people and you know hanging out with Gary Marshall is just such a fun experience he’s an amazing director but things didn’t in there hey do you want to see something cool getting to do this voiceover role it was amazing because I could do it while I was on tour I could like I could record the voiceovers during the day and then play a show at night will you take

me away from this madness you going to get the hang of this Ginger did it take a lot of persuading to have you appear in a cats movie no no no it was very easy all they had to do was ask the f lover went to cat school and wrote an original song for the film that earned her a Golden Globe nod one of four over her career and of course Taylor’s been serving up dramatic visuals in her music videos for decades even transforming into a zombie and the man which took 5 hours everybody’s like cute wiggling hey you know what I mean Taylor won a VMA

for directing the video her first of three in the category something no solo artist has ever done and that’s not all I all she broke records with all too well the short film it has almost 100 million views and it won a Grammy making her the first artist with a directing credit to win best music video yes yes directing I I felt as fulfilled by it as I did when I craft a song and think about every aspect of it and it comes together and then it goes out in the world there are so many moving pieces up next Tay will be making her

feature film directorial debut she wrote an original script that was picked up by Search light Pictures did I read that you’re one of the top 10 most powerful girls in Hollywood they’re saying that I don’t even live in Hollywood how cool is that no doubt Taylor will have plenty of A-list friends to collaborate with because let’s be honest her real superpower being a ride or die bestie one of my best friends is Emma Stone so if I could ever act in anything with Emma that would be a dream come true reped rumors

she is a very very good friend of mine we’re both the same age we both write songs uh from our heart and uh yeah it’s pleasure knowing her she’s one of those women who I could basically base my character on it’s just Relentless endless fire what are the characteristics of a great friend oh I think sincerity like they truly um mean what they say and they’re honest I’m her dat we just walked the carpet together she’s amazing she’s been she’s been in my life for so long we’re kind of like sisters at this point there’s Selena

Gomez G Hadid Taylor let Sophie Turner use her New York apartment during her divorce from Joe Jonas there’s sort of like a unspoken code that we’re there for each other and we would never turn on each other we’re not going to gossip about each other it’s like kind of like this Alliance that that is the best kind of friendship you can have a friend perk Lake Lively and Ryan Reynolds kids are name checked in Taylor’s songs her writing is so beautiful and it’s so personal and you can feel that you can feel that in the way that she sings you

can feel that in her lyrics were waiting for Taylor Swift to name your fourth child so we got to know what are you calling your fourth child in the meantime oh all the letters are silent you know it just s sort of sounds like a four light Breeze all right what advice would you give to anyone who wants to become a singer um get a good lawyer yeah Taylor knows all too well about that back in 2016 she answered Vogue 73 questions while giving a tour of her La home but she’s dropped many Swift isms to ET over the years too and we leave you now with

more Taylor in her own words have a safe Fourth of July everybody bye-bye the best advice I’ve ever gotten was to be kind to people also to take a lot of pictures the worst advice I’ve ever gotten live it up you’re young that’s a horrible advice I mean come on I can’t live it up if I live it up it’s on National newspapers I I I wouldn’t change the way things have gone because I love getting to do this and I I live to write songs that’s what I live for

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.

Share this with someone who needs to be reminded that the right sentence said at the right moment can completely change the entire direction of a relationship. Ring the notification bell for more untold stories about the extraordinary human beings behind music’s greatest legends.