It’s hard to explain or figure out the enigma that is Bob Dylan, because he created a product AND the content.
Here’s something and someone who defies being categorised- a kid who apparently grew up listening to the blues, which is where pretty much all music started, got inspired, got perspired and started writing his own songs until these started to change when, maybe, it was starting to sound the same or becoming categorised.
Who knows?
Dylan probably doesn’t know either, but instead of curiosity killing the cat, his curiosity probably gave the cat that he is, nine lives and different branches for his own tree of life to grow.
Though most, if not all the music from Bob Dylan was created many decades ago, what continues to interest and intrigue many is how it resonates with certain people in the Now, but doesn’t with others.
Maybe this has to do with the movie that is “A Complete Unknown” with a brilliant cast and soundtrack and massive marketing efforts.
To those who grew up to the Bob Dylan soundtrack playing in the background, what do they think about this movie?
Mildly interesting in watching actors impersonate two key living people- Dylan and Joan Baez?
With Dylan involved in the script, could this have played into his hands- not in a bad way- but by offering him another opportunity to continue being the storyteller that he will always be?
Or, despite for all its sincerity, has “A Complete Unknown” become just another biopic of a another musician who might be here or might have left us- like Elvis, Freddie Mercury, or Elton John?
More and more, it’s not the movie, but it’s Dylan’s music that offers me something of an insight into myself, and why I am drawn to some people, and them to me, whereas others have their own musical churches to follow and beliefs that have no hold over me.
It’s not unlike Dylan singing about not working on Maggie’s farm no more, or his complete lack of respect for whoever was on parked out on Positively Fourth Street and the Mr.Jones type of politics unveiled in Ballad Of A Thin Man.
Nothing frighteningly wrong with any of that, I guess.
Like different religions, it’s about what works best for you, and who you trust with your innermost feelings, especially if not ever wishing to be a one trick pony and being on Repeat.
The older one gets, it’s always about questioning one’s self, looking for answers, looking ahead, looking back to remind yourself where you came from - and who to trust enough to be around you while you create your own destiny- or whatever is left of it.
Over thirty years ago, along with others, Bob Dylan warned about the sameness of music being made and how things will change.
It hasn’t.
Also, over the years, Dylan remains a song and dance man, but being his own version of Mr Bojangles, and being the prophetic folk singer in the early sixties and the almost reluctant “protest” singer, he flipped a switch and became the charismatic chameleon who decided to go electric and get personal.
From here, he went country, got busy being born again, being a crooner and being whoever the hell he wanted to be.
Did he care about being a commercial hit?
Don’t think so.
After the Covid and lockdown years and the ongoing wars for power and more power and feeding greed with Beaucoup De Big Bucks plus that other pandemic known as social media robbing many of original thinking and almost forcing onto the world the tools to produce soulless Toys R’Us playthings, perhaps the world is ready for change and a return to the real world.
Perhaps.
Will this 2025 model of the world ever see that real world again without mobile phone connectivity, no more apps for saps, no looking for online love in short circuited places and being where the technology is NOT the idea?
Maybe.
This is where the storytelling of Bob Dylan that many of us have heard for so many years somehow rings true.
At least for me, it’s from where we can feel inspired again, and perhaps even create a new counter-culture for the next generation.
It’s not that different to how we have also been inspired by the music and times of the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Ray Charles, Laura Nyro, Phil Spector, Paul Simon, James Taylor etc and the brilliant creativity, passion and originality of Spielberg, Scorsese, David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Henson, and all those who inspired THEM- Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Polanski, Brando, James Dean, Bette Davis, Hollywood, Hollyweird and others.
These days, I see things and listen to whatever is being said, and extremely rarely is there not a hollow ring to much of it.
Bob Dylan doesn’t give me the missing pieces to help fill in the blanks, but there are those words of his that make me stop, think what’s best for me, and how I want to be someone I enjoy being around for myself and no one else.
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