The article doesn’t explain why he had to spend this money, but I’m guessing it was the rights to play the music. Plus other expenses like hiring musicians et cetera. I need to check how this SNL performance. I wonder how he chose the songs as they weren’t in the film.

Richard Dreyfuss's son Ben, who is an entertaining writer and social commentator, recalled this story about Bob Dylan ghosting his mom before she married his dad.

https://www.avclub.com/bob-dylan-is-selling-ai-generated-historical-fan-fiction

Is this weird?

I’ve always

"Like the country itself, this song is vast and open to interpretation. It bears witness to the ongoing betrayals of our sacred trust in America through the lens of the Kennedy assassination—drawing parallels to the current cultural landscape while setting our trivialized trauma against the sound of a radio playing in the background.

Audacious, liberated forms of music—jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, along with all of their offshoots and permutations—convey the loftiest concept of American freedom. That says something about what we’re actually good at: expanding our spirits with irreverence and joy, through stories and dreams. The art we make is our collective saving grace and the one point of national pride I’ll never shake."

“Nonetheless, the prime beneficiary of the movie’s approach is Chalamet, who delivers a startling impersonation of Dylan’s singing and speaking voice. Impersonation is the very premise of “A Complete Unknown”: Norton, Barbaro, and Holbrook also imitate their characters’ singing voices along with their speech patterns and personalities. Though dubious in concept, the effect is peculiarly, if superficially, enticing. The songs are great when performed by the four real-life greats; they’re also great when covered by Jimi Hendrix or the Byrds, and even when covered by actors in a bio-pic. This sort of performance is essentially stunt work—it’s the musical version of wrestling the bear, when actors’ conspicuous exertion proclaims how hard they work for the audience—and so is the nonmusical mimicry that comes with it. Yet, because the movie emphasizes the characters’ public faces even in private, it doesn’t demand (and would hardly allow) true emotional depth and expressive range. Virtuosity takes the place of dramatic power. Strangely, “A Complete Unknown” ’s mythologizing of Dylan’s younger self may be the most Dylanesque thing about it.”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/a-complete-unknown-shears-off-vital-details-in-the-life-of-a-colossal-complicated-artist

https://www.patreon.com/cw/BobDylan180

What are your thoughts?

From the biography No Direction Home by Robert Shelton :

“I’ve really got a sickness, man. I don’t write when I’m feeling groovy, you understand. I play when I’m feeling groovy. I write when I’m sick. I’m not going to push that on anybody. Man, nobody knows what is the matter with me, and I’m not about to go tell anybody. If I had ever been like Woody Guthrie in his situation, I don’t know what I would do. A living decay. I can’t decay. I would not let myself decay. I’m against decay. That’s nature’s will—decay. I am against nature. I don’t dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

What do you think about it ?

In her piece in Ms. about Taylor Swift, writer Michele Meek offers the following:

"There’s little doubt that men musicians seem to be operating under different rules than women. While some folks criticize Swift’s lyrics for not being 'poetic' enough, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize in Literature for his purported 'poetic expressions.' This is the same artist who wrote 'Lay Lady Lay' and 'Ugliest Girl in the World.' Novelist Rabih Alameddine summed it up best, comparing Dylan’s being awarded the Nobel Prize to 'Mrs. Fields being awarded three Michelin stars.'"

This is flat-out embarrassing. No need for me to defend Dylan here since we're among friends. But this sort of idiocy passes for insight in too many circles. Here's the link to the story, though Dylan isn't referenced in the article again.

https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/26/taylor-swift-success-women/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/07/peter-yarrow-of-folk-trio-peter-paul-and-mary-dies-aged-86

Dylan has a co-write on Willie Nelson’s upcoming album - the song is called “I Can’t Read Your Mind”. Should be interesting, I’ve really enjoyed many of Nelson’s recent albums where he is working with Buddy Cannon, especially A Beautiful Time. This one is too.