The Known Unknowns of Bob Dylan

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025. Already there’s been a lot going on. The terrorist attack in New Orleans. The Cybertruck bombing in Las Vegas. The near-mutiny against House Speaker Mike Johnson. The fight (or, so far, lack thereof) against Donald Trump’s bonkers appointees. The death of Jimmy Carter. The anniversary of the insurrectionist January 6 riot Trump incited with his outlandish lies about the 2020 election. The latter particularly deserves attention, given that nearly half of the electorate backed a convicted felon who triggered a violent assault that was mounted to overturn the nation’s constitutional order. This was American fascism in action—a warning much of the country has chosen not to heed.

But I just got back from a long trip to Europe, during which I had stretches of hours when I was awake and did not check social media or the headlines. So I’m catching up. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts on the new movie about the young Bob Dylan. It was a pleasant diversion to ponder this film instead of the recent machinations of MAGA Republicans. Which reminds me: I encourage everyone to find distractions in the months ahead. Keep informed, stay engaged, do what you can to protect the best American values. But also break free occasionally—without feeling guilty—to contemplate and enjoy other matters. It will make you a better citizen.

In the opening pages of Bob Dylan’s 2004 memoir, Chronicles, the American bard recounts what transpired in 1962 when it was time for him to help a PR agent for Columbia Records write up his bio for a press release accompanying his first album, the eponymously named Bob Dylan. He told the guy a lot of hooey: He had grown up in Illinois, driven a bakery truck, worked construction in Detroit, had no family, and had gotten to New York City by riding a freight train. None of that was true. But that’s how the 20-year-old Dylan would be introduced to the world: a myth of his own making. In the 52 years since then, it has never been easy to get a handle on the guy. A Complete Unknown, the new Dylan biopic, takes a mighty stab at this. But this well-made and engrossing film—with Timothée Chalamet filling the tall order of playing the fella from Minnesota once known as Robert Zimmerman—ends up more a chronology than an explanation of Dylan.

The film’s central point is tracking Dylan’s transfiguration from earnest and political folkie to rebellious poet of rock ’n’ roll. The climax—and this is hardly a spoiler—is his legendary appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where, in the shorthand of Dylanography, he “went electric.” His three-song opening set was an earthquake for the folk music purists. Their fair prince had traded his workman’s cap and ballads of the underdogs for dark shades, loud music, and nonlinear tunes. A Complete Unknown exquisitely captures this tale of cultural upheaval, with Chalamet conveying Dylan’s arrogance, irreverence, and passion for disruption (while singing his songs darn well), and Edward Norton wonderfully standing in for Pete Seeger, the heroic, noble, and big-hearted guardian of folk.

Yet the film doesn’t provide much of an answer to the mystery of Dylan. What had propelled him to first become a Woody Guthrie emulator and then a pioneer of modern music? From where did all that talent come? What was the upbringing that produced this master songwriter? Why did he become a singular voice within the cacophony of the 1960s? The movie comes across as authentic—the sets, the costumes, the music, the dialogue, the attitudes, and everything else—but falls a tad short on insight. And, yes, there are many factual liberties taken—which you can read about here—including one large omission: There are no significant references to Dylan’s drug use, which indubitably affected how he came to change songwriting for popular music.

Which is what I’d like to focus on. Not the drugs, but his impact on an important art form. A Complete Unknown is built upon that moment in Rhode Island when Dylan traded his acoustic Martin for a Fender Strat and pumped up the volume. It’s certainly worthy of a movie and a book. (See the excellent Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald.) But for my money, the movie shirked the parallel tsunami: the change in Dylan’s songwriting. He had come to Greenwich Village, a folk singer who did what folk singers at the time did: played handed-down songs that had been around for a while. The skill for these artists was in how they arranged the old tunes. That’s why Dylan’s first album is full of what we now call covers. Of the 13 tracks, only two—“Song to Woody” and “Talkin’ New York”—are Dylan originals.

But Dylan was a brilliant writer from the start, and the songs he initially penned were in sync with the folk tradition: ballads, topical songs, and blues. Think of these three compositions from his mega-selling second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” and “Masters of War.” The next two albums—The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Another Side of Bob Dylan—followed suit, with such numbers as “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

Then came a turn, turn, turn. On his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, which featured that newfangled electric sound, several songs had a surrealistic bent. Gone were the straightforward tales of social injustice. In their place were rollicking metaphors and impressionistic imagery. What was over now for Baby Blue? And what did it mean when he warbled, “Don’t follow leaders / Watch the parking meters.” Dylan was one of the first popular recording artists—the first?—to deliver songs open to interpretation, the way that modern poems could be interpreted. These tracks were not simple narratives or why-I-love-her or why-she-doesn’t-love-me songs. They were art. Beat poetry—or T.S. Eliot—set to music. They subverted the Tin Pin Alley tradition and I-wanna-hold-your-hand early rock. And, of course, they were not what most people thought was folk music. (You can watch Dylan blow away the sentimentality of British folkie Donovan in an impromptu song-off featured in the 1967 documentary Don’t Look Back.)

Years ago, I was talking about this with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the wonderful Texas troubadour, and he told me how Dylan transformed the world for him and other musicians of his generation: “Dylan changed songwriting for all of us. He showed us that you could write a song about anything. He liberated songwriting.”

How did that happen? A crass part of the answer might be simple: his use of drugs. As noted above, A Complete Unknown, made with Dylan’s blessing, sidesteps this. (The Beatles underwent a similar evolution after Dylan introduced them to weed in the summer of 1964, while they were in New York City on their first US tour.) There’s no doubt more to this crucial element of the Dylan story than amphetamines and grass. Yet this puzzle might even confound Dylan. In an interview with Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes in 2004, Dylan himself could not explain his own creativity. “I don’t know how I got to write those songs,” he said. “Those early songs were almost magically written.”

There are several brilliant scenes in A Complete Unknown. One occurs when Dylan’s much-tested on-again/off-again girlfriend, the fictitious Sylvie (who’s based on the real-life Suze Rotolo, who appeared with Dylan on the cover photo for his second album), tells Dylan that being with him makes her think of the performer on the Ed Sullivan Show who balanced spinning plates on long sticks. “I like that guy,” Dylan says. After that, she runs away from him for the last time. (This did not happen.) In another, the morning after his Newport performance caused a ruckus, Joan Baez tells him he’s won. What did I win? Dylan asks. “Freedom,” she says.

A Complete Unknown is an account of a rebel with a cause: himself and his artistic liberty. It makes for a good yarn about an important episode in American cultural history. Dylan is hero and anti-hero in this ode (maybe more the former than the latter), which is probably how he likes it. But he remains an enigma, which is also probably how he likes it. He was a revolutionary. But not just because of instrumentation and volume. His writing blasted open a new path for songsmiths. On “Like a Rolling Stone,” the rock tune he played at Newport that gives this film its title, Dylan sang, “You’ve got no secrets to conceal.” Well, half a century later—after so much poking and probing aimed at him, including A Complete Unknown—he still does.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Last week, Tim Cook, the head of Apple, donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Cook is not a GOP donor, and he did not contribute to Trump’s campaign. (He donated $236,000 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2016, but he has not been much of a political funder since.) He explained this iGift to associates as merely support for a great tradition in American politics. Does anyone believe this? With Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon, the Washington Post), and Sam Altman (Open AI) each kicking in a cool mil to Trump’s return-to-the-throne-fest—and Elon Musk having bankrolled Trump’s presidential bid with at least $277 million—Cook obviously did not want to be the Big Tech honcho missing this party. Especially because Trump is watching.

Trump hasn’t even moved back into the White House yet, and he’s already running a mob-like protection racket. Nice little tech company you have. It would be a pity if something happened to it...because of a government regulation or tariff. Clearly, these tech bros are running scared. And they’re kissing the ring. Virtually, but with real cash. Or maybe PayPal? Ugly, obscene, frightening—this is how an autocratic state works. The jefe uses his power and influence to squeeze the big-money gang, and the robber-barons are free to plunder away. The more titans who pony up, the more pressure there is on their brethren (and sistren, as few as there may be) to do the same. Look for other corporate rulers to bend the knee.

This is big-time grift for Trump, far grander than selling sneakers and NFT trading cards. The money for the inauguration goes to a nonprofit, but there’ll likely be a way for the family and Trump cronies to benefit. (Zach Everson recently reported in Forbes that Trump’s inauguration committee is selling merchandise, with the proceeds going to Trump’s campaign and a Trump political action committee, meaning this revenue “could ultimately be used to cover Trump’s personal expenses, including legal fees.”)

And don’t forget this: With artificial intelligence, the new Wild West of the tech world and the global economy, the big question is, who will decide what happens with it? As of now, it sure looks like it will be the tech moguls who are racing to profit off AI before its potential risks and dangers can be fully evaluated and possibly averted or minimized. So the future of humanity may be in the hands of these Trump suck-ups. What a great new tradition, Mr. Cook.

Babygirl. I confess: Babygirl confused me. Nicole Kidman’s racy new flick is about a high-powered CEO named Romy Mathis who descends (if that’s the right word) into a submissive relationship with Samuel, a twentysomething intern (hunky Harris Dickinson). She has an adoring husband who’s a successful theater director (Antonio Banderas) and who attentively makes love to her. She’s a good mother to two mostly doing-okay teenage daughters. But, as we learn, she has never had an orgasm during her 20-year-long marriage. And she has long harbored kinky fantasies that seem tied to an unusual upbringing. Unable to say no to her desires, she falls into the clutches of Samuel, who’s clearly played the dom before. And we are treated to a variety of scenes in which he exerts control over her sexually and psychologically. Milk plays a crucial role in several exchanges.

Babygirl, written and directed by Halina Reijn, was hyped as something of a modern-day, gender-flipping answer to Fatal Attraction. In that film, Glenn Close refused to be cast off by Michael Douglas after he ended their torrid extramarital affair, and a revenge thriller ensued, with Close losing out. In Babygirl, no such action occurs. Romy just keeps feeling conflicted, while yielding to temptation and placing herself in a rather compromising position with this inappropriate workplace relationship. Some viewers may see her as a hero who finds a way to embrace and come to terms with her unconventional desires. But she’s also a woman who makes bad choices that can blow up her life and her family. Moreover, Babygirl might reinforce the misogynistic view that women at the pinnacle of power still yearn to be controlled by men. That’s not progress.

Susanna Hoffs and Elvis Costello, “Connection.” Last month, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards turned 81—a stunning feat that scientists ought to be studying. To celebrate, two of my favorite musicians, Elvis Costello and Susanna Hoffs, the lead singer of the Bangles, released a duet of “Connection,” a tune the Stones recorded in 1967 that featured Richards and Mick Jagger sharing the vocals. “We both wanted to do the Keith part, but I won!” Hoffs said of the collaboration. She also noted that Richards sang lead on her top three Stones songs, including “Happy.” That’s a good choice for any best-of-the-Stones list.