Because it is Awards Season, people are getting mentioned for good things left, right and centre. Take Bob Dylan, for example. The 73-year old musician was given the Musicares’ 2015 Person of the Year award on Friday night and topped off his winnings with a 30 minute speech to 3 000 people in LA. Yep, 30 minutes. Had that been the father-of-the-bride at a wedding he would have been boo’d off the podium.

Bob’s talk was accompanied by a whole host of artists that he picked to sing his songs.

The show, which was not broadcast, reportedly included performances by Beck (“Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat”); Jackson Browne (“Blind Willie McTell”); Bruce Springsteen (“Knocking on Heaven’s Door”); Neil Young (“Blowin’ In the Wind”); Jack White (“One More Cup of Coffee”); Crosby, Stills and Nash (“Girl From the North Country”); Tom Jones (“What Good Am I?”); Willie Nelson (“Senor”) and Los Lobos (“On a Night Like This”).

The point of having so many people “interpret” his songs?

The diversity of the lineup proved to highlight a key theme in Dylan’s subsequent speech, in which he offered surprisingly tender thanks to Peter, Paul and Mary, who turned “Blowin’ In the Wind” into a hit song and—Dylan explained—taught him a lot about the mutability of a song, and how reinterpretation can open up myriad new possibilities in a song.

“Their versions of the songs were like commercials,” he explained, to laughter in the audience. “But I didn’t really mind that because 50 years later my songs were being used in the commercials. So that was good, too. I was glad it happened, and I was glad they’d done it.”

He called Nina Simone an “overwhelming artist”, referred to Joan Baez as “a woman of devastating honesty” and Johnny Cash as “a hero of mine.”

He spoke about how the critics over the years had torn him apart:

Critics have always been on my tail since day one. Seems like they’ve always given me special treatment. Some of the music critics say I can’t sing. I croak. Sound like a frog. Why don’t these same critics say similar things about Tom Waits? They say my voice is shot. That I have no voice. Why don’t they say those things about Leonard Cohen? Why do I get special treatment? Critics say I can’t carry a tune and I talk my way through a song. Really? I’ve never heard that said about Lou Reed. Why does he get to go scot-free? What have I done to deserve this special treatment? Why me, Lord?

You can read more excerpts from Bob’s speech in Chris Francescani‘s post on The Daily Beast.