David Letterman hasn’t been on TV quite as long as Bob Dylan has been making music, but there’s still something incredibly poetic about one of the music industry’s most revered veterans stopping by to pay tribute to the King of Late Night in his penultimate episode.
The Bard returned to the Late Show for the first time since 1993 to tip his proverbial hat to the talk show genre’s elder statesman, who’s calling it a day after more than three decades on the job.
Appropriately, Dylan performed a crooning rendition of the 1941 jazz standard The Night We Called It A Day from his latest studio album, Shadows in the Night, which is bound to hit diehard Letterman fans square in the feels.
In the American pop culture lexicon, Dylan and Letterman’s contributions are both beyond measurement. Bobby D, whom Letterman dubs “the greatest songwriter of modern times”, first kicked off the the inaugural season of Letterman’s The Late Show on CBS with a performance of his iconic song Forever Young. So it seems more than fitting that he should return in 2015 as the final announced musical guest under Letterman’s tenure, to salute the King of Late Night as he hangs up his double-breasted suit once and for all.
Other recent musical guests to make a splash during Letterman’s final lap have included Future Islands, Eddie Vedder and a touching tribute by comedian Adam Sandler.
The Late Show with David Letterman concludes tomorrow with an episode promising “an hour filled with surprises”. Watch Bob Dylan’s moving musical tribute to the television icon, below.
Watch: Bob Dylan – The Night We Called It A Day Live On Letterman, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_djZiswcrQ
Watch: Bob Dylan – Forever Young Live On Letterman, 1993
https://youtu.be/b7WTW-8RhR4
