The award is the US’ highest civilian honour, with Dylan being chosen for his ‘significant cultural impact’ on the States, while President Obama stated that there is ‘no bigger giant in the history of American music’.
“By the time he was 23, Bob’s voice, with its weight, its unique, gravelly power was redefining not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel,” President Obama continued. “Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude.”
Dylan was one of 13 people to be presented with the award this year. Other recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom included Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State, physician and epidemiologist William Foege and astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the Earth.