Like a complete unknown: Bob Dylan frogmarched to collect ID after rookie policewoman fails to recognise [him]

Back in 1965 Bob Dylan sang: 'How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown?'

Now, 44 years later, the world-famous musician got his answer when he was stopped by a police officer who didn't know who he was.

The 22-year-old officer asked the 'eccentric-looking old man' for identification papers after stopping him in the U.S. seaside town of Long Branch, New Jersey.

Music legend: Bob Dylan had been taking an afternoon stroll when residents of Long Branch, New Jersey complained of a man 'acting suspiciously'

Not recognising his name, the officer ordered him into the back of her police car, driving him back to his hotel to check his story.

It was not until she radioed her colleagues at the station to ask who he was, did she learn of her error.

The 68-year-old singer had been in town for a concert with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.

He was taking an afternoon stroll through the town’s Latin quarter when town's police station received a call complaining that a man was acting suspiciously.

Police officer Craig Spencer said: 'Residents called to complain there was an old scruffy man acting suspiciously.

'It was an odd request because it was mid-afternoon, but it’s an ethnic Latin area and the residents felt the man didn’t fit in. Lets just say he looked eccentric.

'We dispatched a young woman officer. She is 22 and unfortunately she had no idea who Bob Dylan was.

'He was on a walkabout but she wasn’t entirely convinced of his innocence.

'She took him back to the hotel to check his papers, then she called us to check who Bob Dylan was.

'I’m afraid we all fell about laughing. If it was me, I’d have been demanding his autograph not his photo ID.

'The poor woman has taken rather a lot of abuse from us,' he added.

'I offered to bring in some of my Dylan albums, but unfortunately she doesn’t know what vinyl is either.'

This is not the first time that the notoriously reclusive singer has been spotted out alone.

He shunned his chauffeur-driven car after a concert in Belfast in 1991, and was captured by a television crew waiting at a bus stop instead.

The music legend once told an interviewer: 'Being noticed is a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.'

Dylan’s 1960s anthem The Times They Are a-Changin’ signalled the start of America’s youth protest movement. Given yesterday's incident, it seems he was right.

Like a complete unknown: Bob Dylan frogmarched to collect ID after rookie policewoman fails to recognise scruffy music legend | Mail Online