I want to ask you all to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength and that I may faithfully serve him and you all the days of my life. The royal family has announced the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. WHEN A SOVEREIGN IS CROWNED, IT’S RECOGNIZED THAT IT’S ONLY TEMPORARY. And that crown will someday be worn by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Queen, head of the Commonwealth, Queen of Scots, defender of the faith. For at the heart of our faith stand not a preoccupation with our own welfare and comfort, but the concept of service and of sacrifice, as shown in the life and teachings of the one who made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant.
When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, the Archbishop of Canterbury laid the crown on her head, and here is what he said, “I give thee, O gracious lady, this crown to wear until he who deserves the right to wear it shall return.” Some people may seem surprised to hear that my father Billy Graham and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II were friends.
It’s unlikely after all that American Southern Evangelist and a British monarch would have anything in common, but they did. Their friendship was built on a shared love for Jesus Christ and belief in God’s word. He admired that she spoke publicly about her faith in Jesus Christ. He also had a strong connection to the people of the United Kingdom.
This story reaches back to a time when my father’s ministry was just beginning at the end of World War II. And it was his first trip abroad. In March of 1946, Billy Graham took the first ever commercial flight from Chicago to London. He and his colleagues were embarking on a missionary trip to Britain and Europe. World War II had left the continent in shambles.
The despair he witnessed made a strong impact on the young preacher. London was still a bombed-out shell for the most part. And uh people had not begun to recover. It was very difficult, very tough. It touched my father what he saw what the war had done to Europe. It gave him a burden for the people of the UK.
Cliff Barrows and I lived here with our wives during the entire winter. We spent 6 months going from one place to another, whoever would have us. And we lived with the people, and we got to know a lot of people that way. I was with my family, uh it’s my parents, uh and I think probably one of my sisters.
So, I was quite a small player in the conversation. Uh but um he included Uh, clothes rationing was still on in those days and clothing was quite hard to come by and, uh, limited. I remember very vividly that he gave me a pair of socks, American style, which was a bit flashy. And I enjoyed wearing them. He was young. He was very warm, very personable, easy to talk to. He listened.
We didn’t have the itinerary all planned out. We were believing that God would give us wisdom as we followed his leading. He wasn’t the program that the world knew at that point. He was just a young preacher from North Carolina. My father was there to preach the gospel. After returning to the States, Billy continued to pray for Europe and the friends he’d made there.
He hoped for an opportunity to go back and share the gospel again. Almost a decade later, an exciting invitation came. Billy accepted and a London Crusade was set to begin on March 1st, 1954. Billy and Ruth Graham made their journey by ocean liner. But just days before they were due to arrive, they received some troubling news.
There was controversy as the mission was about to begin. The press were all over him. Before the campaign, the reactions of the British press were significant. A number of the London dailies had been openly antagonistic and hostile. My father had made some statements about British politics. It made some enemies and of course it a little controversy.
They had members of parliament, there was petitions and others to keep him from coming. The negative press gave Billy and his team deep doubts about whether people would even come to the first meeting. And if they did come, would they respond to the message? I’ve heard Mr. Graham say that on the way to the arena, he thought to himself, “Well, this is entirely now God’s work.
We’ve done all we can do.” I imagine he had steeled himself to think that nobody would show, but as they come into view of Haringey of there were scores of people and of course the building was filled and they never looked back. And a little bit of controversy gave some publicity. People didn’t know much about him, all of a sudden began to hear about this preacher Billy Graham.
We have not come here to the city of London to save England. We’ve not come here with any great ideas that we’re going to tell you how to do it. We haven’t come here to try to reform you. We’ve come here at the invitation of these churches to help lead you in a crusade to WIN MEN TO JESUS CHRIST. AND WE’RE HERE TO HONOR AND glorify only one person and that is the man in the glory, Jesus Christ.
He is the only one that deserves our praise and our honor and our glory. The press turned around. They were carrying huge stories. And people were coming from everywhere to attend it. People were coming from the continent, they were coming from America just to see what was happening. When I went to Haringey, uh they were great times.
It was a great spirit. I remember in the underground trains going back to Victoria, groups people singing in the trains, a sense that God was present and powerful and moving and active and changing people’s lives. I think I would have been about nine, eight or nine years old. And I was at a school and amazingly it was a topic of conversation.
And it’s just incredible to think that that was so. We went for six weeks and the Lord began to move in a marvelous way at Haringey. And we went night after night with people filling every available place. It was extended for 12 weeks. People realized something’s going on. Something has stirred in the hearts of people.
People want to know more about it. And that’s why I think the meeting went over 12 weeks. Because the need was there. People’s hearts were softened by the preaching of the gospel. Men and women all over the world today are looking for happiness, peace, security, and joy. The invitation was very much a part of Bill’s passion. You have to choose.
The spirit of God has to change you. And you have to accept the challenge that Jesus issues. If you’re ready to do that, you can receive him right tonight. He often said to us, “Well, I had a hard time. I didn’t feel I had power in preaching. But when I gave the invitation, I knew by faith that God was going to honor the preaching of his precious word.
” That’s it quickly. Come on, all over the place. Those that lifted your hand. Haringey touched the entire UK. Nothing like this had ever happened. And those kinds of things you say, “Well, okay, big deal.” But it was a big deal. In many ways, it was a life-altering for the church in England, and it was a historic watermark for Mr. Graham.
Just a year later, Billy and his team returned to Europe. This time, to Scotland. The scripture says he was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin. You must receive Christ by faith as your Lord and Savior. On Good Friday of that year, the BBC carried Mr. Graham’s preaching live in a really historic television moment.
It was the second most watched program in BBC history other than the coronation of the Queen. Now, there’s a difference in belief and receiving. All of us believe in God. We believe in the Bible. We believe in the church. We even believe in Christ. We believe that he died. We believe that he rose again.
But, that’s not enough to make you a Christian. That’s an intellectual thing. There must be the receiving, that act of trusting and commitment to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master and Savior. The people were spellbound. And the press were spellbound. Who was this man who could preach like this? Looking like a film star.
Quite frankly, no one had ever seen anything like this, not in living memory. And tonight, you can be a Christian. I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat in a moment and stand reverently in front of this platform before the cross of Christ. Her Majesty watched it. It was just a young preacher. He had a great smile and a loud voice.
He was animated when he preached. And he’s preaching, of course, the simple word of God. Mr. Graham always said, regardless of who the audience was, king, queen, or commoner, that when he preached, that the Holy Spirit would take that scripture and drive it supernaturally into the hearts of people. Educated man, uneducated, rich or poor, you can come.
A few days after that broadcast, Billy received an unexpected visitor. An officer of the British Royal Household had been dispatched by the Queen, extending an invitation to preach at Windsor Castle. She hosted them, and and then had my father speak at at the chapel. They became very close friends as a result of that.
And it led to her becoming not only knowledgeable, but also supportive of Billy Graham and his team and their evangelistic work. Every time Mr. Graham has come to London, it seems that Her Majesty the Queen invites him to tea, or invites him to preach for her at the Windsor Chapel. My mother and father had been invited to spend the night at the palace with the royal family, and it was so huge honor.
They were taking a walk at the Queen’s palace there, and they happened on what they thought was a gardener feeding the dogs. And they were just noticing the dogs, and when the gardener stood up, it was actually the Queen. She was out caring for her corgis. And Mr. Graham laughed about that the rest of his life.
She had that marvelous sense of humor with him. She was witty, very well read, very astute on the political situation of the day. Her Majesty also recognized a changing culture that brought with it new challenges. When Billy arrived to preach in 1966, not everyone welcomed his message. The press were gunning for him with a vengeance.
They accused him of using gimmicks and tricks to stir the crowd. God loves every one of you. God thinks you’re important now that he sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for you. Have you plans to engage in public debate while you’re here, or is it going to be what I think people often do suggest about evangelists that it very often involves talking at people rather than with them? The The gospel message is a proclamation.
I don’t have to convince people. The big thing is the work of the spirit of God in their hearts. Does this mean that your appeal is to the emotion rather than the intellect? I think the gospel appeals to the total man. And I think that the greatest need that people have for fulfillment is a true encounter with Christ.
It was very important that Billy Graham never allowed the criticisms to overshadow his message. It’s the gospel that has the impact, not me. I think the mistake is that people look to me and expect me to accomplish something. I’m only a messenger to proclaim a message that I believe has within it the power to change lives.
For weeks before the first service ever took place, the press pointed to the invitation hymn Just As I Am as a gimmick, even propaganda. The charge greatly concerned Billy Graham. Billy called me one day. He said, “Cliff, we know that it’s not this emotion of the song, it’s the moving of the spirit of God and answer to the prayers of God’s people.
Let’s be prepared not to sing just as I am. How many of you here tonight are searching for a purpose and a reason for your existence? You don’t know where you came from. You don’t know why you’re here. You don’t know where you’re going. And there’s an emptiness down inside of you. He died on the cross. He was made to be sin for us.
And on that cross he took the hand of God with one of his hands and your hand with the other and he reconciled God and man. God Well, he gave the invitation and he said, “We’re not going to have any music tonight.” I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat and come and stand right here in front. Then he stepped back.
He folded his arms and he bowed his head in prayer. For the first time in any crusade invitation the choir, piano and organ were silent. For 30 nights we didn’t have one note of just as I am. There was no need for hype, gimmicks or techniques. Oh God I am a sinner. I am willing to turn from my sin. I receive Christ as savior.
In Christ’s name. Amen. Coming up, the Queen faces a year of anguish. 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. And never before seen personal letters reveal Billy Graham’s counsel. For over 60 years, Billy Graham devoted his life to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Let Christ change you and transform you.
And today that work continues. Partner with us in the mission of proclaiming the gospel through every means available. With internet evangelism, we reach the world 24 hours a day. Our rapid response chaplains offer hope in times of crisis. And we continue to share God’s love through Franklin Graham Festivals and Will Graham Celebrations.
Join us in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Visit billygraham.tv or call 877-567-8989. As a thank you, you can receive a copy of Don Wilton’s book, Saturdays with Billy: My Friendship with Billy Graham. Partner with us by calling today or go to billygraham.tv. My father went to the UK more than any other country.
When we look at Mr. Graham’s history of preaching in the United Kingdom, it is remarkable. It is decade upon decade. Mr. Graham had a heart for the United Kingdom. My wife and I, a few months ago, went to Buckingham Palace. And uh I wasn’t sure I had the right clothes. And I asked him, “Now, what would I wear on this occasion? Do I wear striped trousers and cutaway coat? What do I wear? They said, “No, just a business suit, but be sure it’s blue and not black.
” Well, I happen to have this suit I’ve got on right now. And I wore it. But I had the right clothes on when I got there. Nobody turned and stared and said, “Well, he’s dressed improperly.” My wife wasn’t sure what she was to wear, so she went and used it as an excuse to get something Billy and Ruth Graham were careful to respect proper protocol when dealing with the Queen.
But this didn’t prevent them from reaching out when they knew she was facing difficulties. 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis. It had been a year in which three royal marriages had collapsed and a fire destroyed more than 100 rooms in Windsor Castle.
Billy sent a letter of understanding and empathy. He wrote, “During our 50 years of marriage, Ruth and I have sometimes experienced personal heartache and difficulties. I have found great comfort in verses from the scriptures, such as Isaiah 43:2, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. The Queen’s private secretary responded, “The comfort and prayers extended by such friends as you and Ruth have done a great deal to enable Her Majesty to bear up with all the faith, fortitude, and sense of humor which you will know are typical of her.
” My father was always very careful when he met public people, especially people in power, to guard their privacy. But my my father did mention a number of times she had a great love for the Bible. She wanted to study scripture. And uh she just loved the word of God. We understood that they would pray together.
We we we know those things, what they talked about is known only to the two of them and to the heavenly Father. There was a a depth of their relationship. Now, at the core of it was a spiritual a common denominator in Jesus Christ. What matters is holding firmly to the need to communicate the gospel with joy and conviction in our society.
Her faith was part of the rhythm of her life, and so week in week out, she was part of a normal parish church, and she would pray as they prayed, she would sing the hymns, listen to the sermon, and the daily life of the Queen was something that was lived in the presence of Jesus. She understood the gospel, found hope and courage in the gospel.
She’d often speak about it, especially in her Christmas messages to the people of the Commonwealth. And those were the speeches that she wrote herself. And as those broadcasts progressed into the new millennium, she was very explicit and often talked about, “For me, the life of Jesus Christ is an inspiration, an anchor.
” And you can trace through those annual events just how again and again she’d come back and talk about Jesus. She’d talk about her faith. She’d talk about the good news of the gospel. She came very close to doing an appeal on one occasion where, you know, it was almost like you can get up out your seat now and make your commitment to Christ cuz the Queen was saying, “Look, you know, he wants to come and live in your life.” And it was just just amazing.
So, her faith really did shine through. She never backed down from her faith, never. She was very bold, very uh steadfast in a world that was changing so quickly around her where many monarchs might be tempted to go with the wind and go with the culture of that time, she didn’t. She stayed very strong with her faith.
And I think people respected her and loved her for that. The Queen has reflected a wonderful attitude of confidence and expectancy in life, knowing that in Jesus Christ there is resurrection and there is hope. For at the heart of our faith stand not a preoccupation with our own welfare and comfort, but the concept of service and of sacrifice as shown in the life and teachings of the one who made himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant.
The message of faith that Queen Elizabeth embraced was the same message proclaimed by her friend, Billy Graham. Now, searching is important. Searching for purpose and meaning in your life. You can be alive right now physically, but your soul is dead. Your spirit is dead, and you keep searching for something, and you can’t find it.
You don’t know what it is. You can’t find it in money. You can’t find it in drugs. You can’t find it in sex. You can’t find it in all of these other substitutes. You’ll never find what you’re looking for in life till you come to the cross of Christ and are born again. The problem in the world today is sin. And the Bible says we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And that sin separates between you and God so that you don’t have the sense of fulfillment. It’s at the cross where our sins were borne by Christ. He was made to be sin for us. He took your sins and my sins. He took my judgment. He took the hell that I deserved on that cross. Now, what does God require of you? Repentance.
The word repentance simply means to change. It means that you’re going in this direction, you turn around and start in a new direction. That’s repentance. And then you must receive him by faith. Without faith, it’s impossible to please him. It means to put total confidence in, to put total trust in Christ. God loves you. He’s interested in you.
When Christ died on the cross, he had the capacity to see you. And he died for you. Make a new start. You can do that tonight. Jesus Christ from the cross says, “I will save you. I will forgive you. I’ll make you a new person if you come to the cross by repentance and faith.” Come to Christ. As you’ve been watching this program, maybe you’ve been asking the question, “Are your sins forgiven? Are you saved?
If you died today, would God receive you into his presence?” If you’re not sure, you can be sure by just simply praying this prayer. Just say, “God, I’m a sinner. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I want to turn from my sins. I believe that Jesus Christ is your son who died for my sins on the cross, and I want to put my faith and trust in him and follow him as my Lord from this day forward forever.
Amen.” If you prayed that prayer, call that number right now that’s on the screen. Uh we’ve got some people who want to talk to you, pray with you, but call right now that number that’s on the screen.
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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