Credit: Far Out / Album Covers

The 2000 Bob Dylan track that stunned Don Henley: “Really knocked me out”

Fri 22 May 2026 20:13, UK

Bob Dylan is rightly viewed as a near-messianic figure who transformed songwriting forever. However, even by the 1980s, many already saw him as a legacy act whose greatest work was behind him.

For most artists, they have a small window when everything they touch turns to gold, and then one day, the ink suddenly goes dry. During his Christian phase, it appeared to most that Dylan had fallen into this category, and that the tide would never turn back in his favour.

Then, Time Out of Mind arrived in 1997 to huge critical acclaim, taking home the Grammy for ‘Best Album’ the following year, proving that there was still plentiful life in the old dog yet.

While his level of original output has lessened in recent years, Dylan, now in his 80s, doesn’t have anything to prove to a single soul in the world, but praise from Don Henley is always welcome nonetheless.

Their relationship goes both ways. Dylan loves the Eagles, even name-checking Henley and Glenn Frey on ‘Murder Most Foul‘; meanwhile, Henley is a Dylan obsessive who views him as one of the all-time greats.

While Dylan doesn’t speak often, when he gave an extremely rare interview to the New York Times in 2020, he used the platform to name his three favourite Eagles creations, revealing: “‘New Kid in Town,’ ‘Life in the Fast Lane’, ‘Pretty Maids All in a Row’. That could be one of the best songs ever.”

As compliments go, it doesn’t get much grander than Dylan describing a song by your band as “one of the best songs ever”. Those are words that every artist dreams of hearing from, arguably, the most talented songwriter of all-time.

To mark Dylan’s 60th birthday in 2001, Henley contributed words to Rolling Stone about his love of the singer-songwriter, explaining why he exists in a league of his own.

Firstly, he touched upon the key ingredient, beyond his music, that makes Dylan so appealing, explaining, “Bob Dylan is the quintessential enigmatic character – he’s been able to maintain a certain mystery that he cultivated from the very beginning. I think there’s both more and less to him than meets the eye.”

Then, he noted how Dylan’s longevity was another source of inspiration, adding, “I have an enormous respect for what he’s brought to popular music, particularly as I get older. His survival is very welcome in this shallow musical climate we have today.”

While they are only six years apart in age, Dylan has always been a looming presence in Henley’s life for as long as he’s been performing music, describing him as “one of the pioneers of thoughtful lyrics that are about something besides boys and girls. And even when they were about boys and girls, they weren’t about boys and girls in a normal way”.

After recalling how he’d cover ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ as a teenager in a pre-fame band in Texas, Henley brought it to the 2st century by selecting the then-contemporary Dylan track that means just as much to him.

The track in question is ‘Things Have Changed’ from the 2000 film Wonder Boys, which took him aback upon first hearing it, sharing, “That most recent song he did – ‘Things Have Changed’ – really knocked me out.”

He continued, “I was driving around one day, and I’d never heard it before, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, somebody is really doin’ a good Bob Dylan.’ I was saying, ‘This is better than Bob,’ and it turned out to be him. He’s a cyclical person, as all great artists are – he sort of comes and goes.”

Despite not even appearing on a studio album by Dylan, ‘Things Have Changed’ is an era-defining track from his back catalogue, as he aged gracefully into the fifth decade of his career. It also made him an Oscar-winner, cementing, if it wasn’t quite sealed before, that Dylan had an irreversible level of relevancy that will never fade.