Bob Dylan has broken his customary silence via The New York Times, contributing to an op-ed tied to US President Donald Trump's 80th birthday.
The 85-year-old rock legend offered some words of wisdom with selection of octogenarians on what it means to reach the milestone age.
"The old fire in your heart still tells you to do this and that, but your body says we already did it. Also, nothing surprises you," Dylan wrote in the New York Times.
"It sounds like a luxury but it's not, and also you've run out of illusions.
"The really worst part about being 80 is that you find, at last, you've got an understanding of something that might have altered everything in the past, had it come at a time when something could still be altered.
"When you're young you think that time moves forward. At 80 you know that it doesn't, it stands still. We're the ones that move."
However, Dylan did reveal the sense of "freedom" that came with turning 80.
"The best thing about being 80 is that you outlive the clocks that have been chasing you.
"It's freedom from that lie that anything was ever under control. You don't chase the parade anymore.
"You're an old king from some vanished country. You're harder to program."
