Seven Days: December 2 – 8, 2024

December 2 - 8, 2024

The Week in Bob Dylan

This is Seven Days, a weekly summary of the best Bob Dylan news and links and everything new. You're seeing the free public edition.

Premium Members get an Extended Edition which includes 10-40 more links every week including lists of New Articles, Blog Posts, Reviews & Releases plus some extra videos.

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Tour Details

The Latest on Bob's Live Concerts

No tour information is currently available.

Top News & Links

Our favorite Dylan-related stories and links

Bob Dylan’s 60 Greatest Songs: Chosen by Paul McCartney, Bono, Patti Smith, Etc. (Mojo) [Rating: 10]
- “A good song is like a basketball backboard, you bounce your life against it and you catch new ideas rebounding back at you.”
Rolling Thunder Roadie Rich Nesin Talks (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [Rating: 10]
- “He’s talking about how he just felt really stagnant, like things just weren’t going anywhere for him, and then he said [Dylan voice] ‘And then I got lucky. I hooked up with Tooommm Petty.’”
When Dylan Was First Noted in Hometown Paper (Duluth News Tribune) [10]
- "The Zimmermans' own Jewish child was first mentioned by name in the News Tribune on Aug. 31, 1945. The family was then still living in Duluth, and the paper reported that 'Mr. and Mrs. Abe Zimmerman and son, Robert, have returned from Hibbing where they were guests of Mrs. Ben Stone.'"
Allen Ginsberg on Heroes – 2 (Bob Dylan) (The Allen Ginsberg Project) [10]
- "Also, as an oral poet he’s supreme: I think he can pronounce his vowels and consonants better than any other bard."
Like A Rolling Stone Pt.2 Jochen Markhorst (Untold Dylan) [8]
- “Apparently, Dylan finds it more important to insert more sense-making qualifiers like ‘Miss Lonely’ and vile one-liners like ‘They’re drinkin‘, thinkin’ that they got it made’ than to keep the rhyme scheme at all costs.”

Special Announcement

The buildup to 'A Complete Unknown' continues.

A Complete Unknown: IMAX Early Access Screenings (IMAX) [8]
- "See below for the list of participating IMAX theatres in A Complete Unknown: IMAX Early Access Screenings on December 18th."
Director James Mangold Reveals His Process (Deadline) [Rating: 8]
- “‘No, we don’t need your recordings, we’re going to do the music. Timmy’s going to sing this himself.’ And they were like, ‘How could you possibly conceive of that?!””
Editors Andrew Buckland and Scott Morris Discuss Cutting the Bob Dylan Biopic (AwardsRadar) [Rating: 5]
- “Below, you can hear my chat with Buckland and Morris. We spoke a lot about working with Mangold, working together, and how a film can come across the finish line in the editing room.”
Recreating the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (GoldDerby) [Rating: 5]
- “To create the complicated soundscape for the film – which includes Chalamet as Dylan performing in several venues, from large concert halls and small bedrooms to the outdoor lawn of the Newport Folk Festival – Mangold enlisted some of the top sound editors in the industry, many of whom he worked with previously.”
Timothée Chalamet On Bob Dylan (Racket) [Rating: 5]
- “But Chalamet added that it’s tricky to interpret the motives and emotions of a man who’s still kickin’, especially when the Dylan who’s with us today is probably a lot different than the Dylan of the ’60s.”
The Remaking of Bob Dylan’s Style in ‘A Complete Unknown’ (WWD) [5]
- "Phillips says she managed to create a screen persona by shining a light on Dylan’s passions, dressing Chalamet in motorcycle jackets, skinny suits inspired by Dylan’s time with The Beatles, and dark sunglasses to conceal his shyness."
‘Dylan Goes Electric’: This Bob Dylan Audiobook Returns to Charts on Heels of Upcoming Biopic Release (Billboard) [3]
- "Dylan Goes Electric traces the genesis of that performance and tracks the resulting fallout from the show, described as 'a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers.'"
Bob Dylan Can’t Wait to See Timothée Chalamet Play Him in A Complete Unknown (Vanity Fair) [3]
- "There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!),” Dylan wrote Wednesday, December 4, on X."
How ‘A Complete Unknown’ Found Bob Dylan Through his Costume (GoldDerby) [3]
- "You see him in 1965 and he’s been to London a couple times, and you see how his silhouette has changed. He’s a fan of The Beatles. He’s hanging out with Donovan. He comes back with this very mod look. So he basically created, along with Mick Jagger and the Beatles, this rock and roll archetype that we know today."
‘A Complete Unknown’ Star Boyd Holbrook on Timothée Chalamet’s Performance (IndieWire) [3]
- "I didn’t play guitar and sing in the beginning of this. It was a crash course into learning how to do that as quickly as possible..."
Wouldn’t It Be My Luck (Splice Today) [Rating: 3]
- “Still, as someone who grew up awaiting each Dylan release, my curiosity is piqued, and I’ve read that Edward Norton’s portrayal of Pete Seeger is spot-on, not surprising since his acting skill so outpaces Chalamet’s that it ain’t even funny, you old rummy.”

New Articles

Stories from the press

Joan Baez: Do I ever hear from Bob Dylan? ‘Not a word’ (The Irish Times) [8]
- "She worked through a lot of her feelings about Dylan a few years ago when she painted his portrait. 'I just cried and cried and listened to his music. Oh, my God, what a gift.'"
New Traveling Wilburys Documentary (The Hard Times) [3]
- "I was right in there with Tom, Bobby, Roy, and George. But I gotta say, after a while, I’ve even started to doubt my own past."
When Dylan Was First Noted in Hometown Paper (Duluth News Tribune) [10]
- "The Zimmermans' own Jewish child was first mentioned by name in the News Tribune on Aug. 31, 1945. The family was then still living in Duluth, and the paper reported that 'Mr. and Mrs. Abe Zimmerman and son, Robert, have returned from Hibbing where they were guests of Mrs. Ben Stone.'"

New Blog Posts

New from fans and other writers

Bob at Newport, 1965 (John’s Substack) [Rating: 3]
- “The next day, we see a different Bob, dark glasses on, wearing a wild polka-dot shirt and boots, fiddling with the organ during an afternoon rehearsal.”
A Bob Dylan Primer (DougOnDylan) [Rating: 5]
- “One thing that he does in live performances that others find odd is that he re-arranges his own songs in such dramatic ways that often times, an uninitiated audience can’t recognize his famous songs as he is playing them.”
On Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ (Thoughts Mostly About Film) [Rating: 5]
- “‘Desolation Row’ is a kind of metaphor for the emotional neighborhood one finds oneself in at these moments; its denizens are sad, playful, complicated, chaotic attempts to describe the feelings he has been experiencing, as if the only way to really try to capture the experience of a foundered relationship is to build a dreamlike world that reflects the real emotional one.”
What Do You Do When the Creative Spark Goes? Tony Attwood (Untold Dylan) [8]
- “But being a creative artist is quite different – it is hard to establish how creativity can be taught or learned, and it is equally hard to establish rules by which creative endeavours can be measured.”
Three Times and Out: Precious Memories Tony Attwood (Untold Dylan) [5]
- “There are indeed many different places from which Bob might have picked up the song. Certainly, it would be known to everyone with an interest in the music of the early decades of the last century.”
Covers We Missed: Blowing in the Wind Pt.2 Jürg Lehmann (Untold Dylan) [5]
- “The album reviews were mostly mixed or bad: Adding electronic beats to ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ and singing it with a distorted voice is song rape, a German critic wrote.”
Dylan & Us: Beyond America Pt.12 Wouter van Oorschot (Untold Dylan) [8]
- “In December 1962, they therefore released Dylan’s single debut ‘Mixed-up Confusion’, barely two months after The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ was released in England.”
Dylan's 'Murder Most Foul' (Critical Conditions) [5]
- “It is very serious, thrusting in its accusations, skepticism and sarcasm that give life to the only serious conspiracy theory that deserves its oxygen: the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the sole assassin, perhaps not even the assassin.”
Why Didn't Bob Dylan Release These Songs? (Nick Deriso) [5]
- “It’s worth examining the times when an extra song, left off for utterly inexplicable reasons, might have saved an only-OK album...”