為 羅大佑 Lo TaYou 獲頒金曲獎特別貢獻獎的引言稿，我在典禮前十天寫了初稿，提供錄音檔給導演組，同時也提供了那些後來在我背後播放的視覺素材（謝謝 Akibo Lee 李明道大哥慷慨提供《原鄉》專輯的海報檔）。主辦單位也向早年和大佑合作密切、設計了許多經典專輯封面並拍了許多珍貴照片的 Adu Tu 杜達雄先生調用了幾張照片，放在舞台中間更大的螢幕上輪播。上台前兩天，我把講稿修潤了一遍，傳給導演組，以為這就是決定版了。
典禮前一天下午，我去北流參加排演，現場唸完了講稿，也看了這段致敬演出的完整彩排。
回家之後，左想右想，又打開電腦重看了 1988 年 Bruce Springsteen 為 Bob Dylan 進入搖滾名人堂做的致敬引言。這是我多年來始終難忘、非常喜歡的一篇致詞，從小我寫到大我，短短五分鐘，涵括了 Bob Dylan 對幾代音樂人和西方樂壇產生的深遠影響，有溫度，有高度，有幽默，也有真情。這是我心嚮往之的致詞。然後，我又重寫了一部分致詞稿。試講給夫人聽，她給了幾個意見，我聽她的話，做了最後一次修改，成為大家聽到的版本。
現場是有提詞機的，但我要講什麼，事先都記熟了，只瞄了兩三眼。
主辦單位給我四分鐘左右的時間，我算過，大概可以講一千字。最後，我用了四分二十八秒。
金曲獎頒獎典禮有幾百萬人收看，這段致詞我卻最在乎一位觀眾，若是他不喜歡，再多人稱讚也沒有用。對，就是羅大佑。他事先不知道我會講什麼，也沒有問一個字。
昨天，收到大佑傳給我的道謝訊息，他沒有講什麼場面話，倒是提到了世代的成長經驗和傳承的需要，也提到他關懷的仍然是「人」的中心價值，希望能在人類被病毒搞得很分裂的時代，重建人的生命的議題。你看，他對世界真的還是有很多意見的。
收到大佑的訊息，我才真的放心了。
底下分享 Bruce Springsteen 的致詞影片和逐字稿。謝謝他，給了我珍貴的靈感。我的金曲致詞，多少也算是向 The Boss 的致敬。■
“The first time that I heard Bob Dylan I was in the car with my mother, and we were listening to, I think, maybe WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind, from ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ And my mother, who was – she was no stiff with rock and roll, she liked the music, she listened – she sat there for a minute, she looked at me, and she said, ‘That guy can’t sing.’ But I knew she was wrong. I sat there, I didn’t say nothin’, but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard. It was lean, and it sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult, and I ran out and I bought the single. And I came home, I ran home, and I put it on my 45, and they must have made a mistake at the factory, because a Lenny Welch song came on. And the label was wrong, so I ran back, and I got it, and I played it, then I went out and I got Highway 61, and it was all I played for weeks. I looked at the cover, with Bob, with that satin blue jacket and the Triumph Motorcycle shirt.
And when I was a kid, Bob’s voice somehow – it thrilled and scared me. It made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent. And it still does. But it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think a 15-year-old kid, in high school, in New Jersey had in him at the time.
Dylan was – he was a revolutionary, man, the way that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind. And he showed us that just because the music was innately physical, it did not mean that it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and the talent to expand a pop song until it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and he changed the face of rock and roll forever and ever.
Without Bob, the Beatles wouldn’t have made Sergeant Pepper, maybe the Beach Boys wouldn’t have made Pet Sounds, the Sex Pistols wouldn’t have made ‘God Save the Queen,’ U2 wouldn’t have done ‘Pride in the Name of Love,’ Marvin Gaye wouldn’t have done ‘What’s Goin’On,’ Grandmaster Flash might not have done ‘The Message,’ and the Count Five could not have done ‘Psychotic Reaction.’ And there never would have been a group named the Electric Prunes, that’s for sure. But the fact is that, to this day, where great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan over and over and over again. And Bob’s own modern work has gone unjustly under-appreciated for having to stand in that shadow. If a young songwriter – if there was a young guy out there writing ‘Sweetheart Like Me,’ writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing ‘Every Grain of Sand,’ they’d be calling him the new Bob Dylan.
That’s all the nice stuff that I wrote out to say about him. Now it’s about three months ago, I was watching TV, and the Rolling Stones special came on, and Bob came on, and he was in a real cranky mood, it seemed like, and he was kind of bitchin’ and moaning about how his fans don’t know him, and nobody knows him. And they come up to him on the street, and kind of treat him like a long-lost brother or something. And speaking as fan, I guess when I was 15, and I heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ I heard a guy that, like I’ve never heard before or since. A guy that had the guts to take on the whole world, and made me feel like I had ’em too. And maybe some people mistook that voice to be saying somehow that you were gonna do the job for ’em. And as we know, as we grow older, that there isn’t anybody out there that can do that job for anybody else.
So I’m just here tonight to say thanks, to say that I wouldn’t be here without you, to say that there isn’t a soul in this room who does not owe you their thanks. And to steal a line from one of your songs, whether you like it or not, ‘you was the brother that I never had.’ Congratulations.”
