While fans and even academics parse the deeper meanings of Dylan’s prodigious lyrical output, the Spokesman for a Generation has also demonstrated a gift for profoundly baffling public statements. Following are five head-scratching examples culled from Bob’s various interviews and speeches over the years. Note to the class: Interpretations employing the terms "genius" or "drug-addled" will not be accepted.

1. Grammy Acceptance Speech, 1991 – "Well, my daddy, he didn't leave me much, you know he was a very simple man, but what he did tell me was this: He did say, ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you know it's possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father and mother will abandon you and if that happens, God will always believe in your ability to mend your ways.’"

2. Quoted in "No Direction Home" by Robert Shelton – "It’s just absurd for people to sit around being offended by their own meaninglessness, so that they have to force everything else to come into the hole with them, and die trying."

3. USA Today, September, 2001 – "The media will never catch up again. Once they let you go, they cannot get you back. It's metaphysical. And it's not good enough to retreat. You have to be considered irrelevant."

4. People Magazine, 1976 – "Shit, man, I’m only me. You know, that’s who I am. We are all the same. No one is on any higher level than anybody else. We’ve all got it within us, for whatever we want to grasp for."

5. Playboy, 1978 – "A saint is a person who gives of himself totally and freely, without strings. He is neither deaf nor blind. And yet he's both. He’s the master of his own reality, the voice of simplicity. The trick is to stay away from mirror images. The only true mirrors are puddles of water."

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