Patti Smith Sings Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall” at Nobel Prize Ceremony & Gets a Case of the Nerves

Human, beau­ti­ful and so touch­ing — the whole per­for­mance!

What a stu­pid head­line, empha­siz­ing Pat­ti’s pause. Super­fi­cial sen­sa­tion­al­ism. A beau­ti­ful per­for­mance. Mean­ing­ful on so many lev­els. Pat­ti Smith is bril­liant cov­er­ing Dylan’s genius to an audi­ence of lau­re­ates, roy­al­ty & pres­tige — much of the estab­lish­ment Dylan cri­tiqued & called out. I cried watch­ing, lis­ten­ing, see­ing & under­stand­ing very lit­tle has changed.

ith a tear, and a lump in my throat, I thank Pat­ti Smith for a pow­er­ful, poignant ren­di­tion. Pos­i­tive­ly beau­ti­ful.

In tears over here

For those who ques­tioned a singer/songwriter win­ning a nobel prize for lit­er­a­ture, don’t know great lit­er­a­ture.

I agree with Melis­sa. Beau­ti­ful per­for­mance by a human being who brought out some beau­ti­ful nuances. Beau­ti­ful gui­tar and orches­tral accom­pa­ni­ment.

What a dar­ling you are Pat­ty. Very fit­ting song for the cur­rent time. What a hard yet beau­ti­ful strug­gle life can some­times be. Thank you for rep­re­sent­ing our won­der­ful poet, Bob Dylan. Superb!!! I am in tears
Grate­ful­ly yours
Julie Miller

Dylan’s speech is love­ly

A tru­ly mov­ing per­for­mance, have played it over sev­er­al times. Very nice gui­tar play­ing as the accom­pa­ni­ment. Also love­ly ped­al steel. (Who was the ped­al steel play­er, does any­one know ?)

I’ve nev­er before heard a song get flubbed so very, very well. It show­cased both hon­est human imper­fec­tion and musi­cal mas­tery, a true tour de force. Her per­for­mance added to the depth and mean­ing of one of the deep­est, most mean­ing­ful songs ever writ­ten, and actu­al­ly brought me to tears. As far as I’m con­cerned this will for­ev­er be the defin­i­tive ver­sion of “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.” A mis­take that achieved per­fec­tion.