I still say A Complete Unknown should have been titled Ghost of Electricity (Searchlight, 12.25) because there’s definitely something ghostly (as in elusive, unknowable, wispy, shadow-cloaked, just out of reach) about the actual Bob Dylan as well as Timothee Chalamet‘s version of him. Not an allusion to “going electric at the ’65 Newport Folk Festival”, for Chrissake, but something, you know, trippier.
I would have also loved My Weariness Amazes Me because it’s the single best line in Mr. Tambourine Man…because before Dylan cooked it up nobody had ever been amazed by their own weariness, and I mean nobody. I sure as hell hadn’t felt that way, I can tell you. But ever since I first heard that line I’ve chanted it over and over. It’s almost become a kind of proverb or motto…a mantra to be repeated when the ache and angst and cosmic boredom get to be a bit much.
Eddie Ginley again: “A Complete Unknown is the boomerist boomer shit that ever boomered.”