Michael and I—neither of us possessing more than the average person’s love of music—found little in A Complete Unknown to dislike and much to appreciate. For me, it was a re-immersion in the folk music scene of the mid-sixties; it was the music; it was the spot-on portrayal of a supremely gifted, frustratingly obsessive nonconformist, a poet and performer who was probably the most interesting persona, if not person, in any room.

Using a well-known lyric from the subject’s opus in the title of your biopic injects the earworm before anybody has even seen your movie. It’s brilliant. From the moment I first saw James Mangold’s film advertised a while back, I had the chorus of Like a Rolling Stone running on a loop in my head. I never learned the verses; I skip through those parts, my imagination filling in the gaps with squeezed vowel sounds and the occasional, contemptuous cry of Didn’t you? Anyway, it got to be too much. Under the theory that you have to hear the song to get rid of it (that was my reason; Michael just wanted to kill a couple of hours on a quiet afternoon) we went to see A Complete Unknown at a funky little movie house in Ft. Collins while on a short holiday vacation last week.

On our drive back to Denver, in the mood, we listened to Dylan. Michael, an accommodating deejay, played The Times They Are a Changin’ and With God on Our Side even though (I think) he prefers later stuff like Maggie’s Farm. To me, Maggie’s Farm is tuneless, repetitive, and abrasive (isn’t that the point?). I know: many Dylan fans think of it as one of his best songs.

I get it. The medium is the message, the message is the message, and angst, hostility, and social criticism can be (and often are) powerfully expressed through music. I was young myself—for a long time—and, as a nascent performer of original work, went through a period of sneering at my audiences as I railed. Comedy was my format, so railing was thinly disguised as raillery… against Reagan; Rocky Flats; corporate greed; white, suburban complacency; environmental criminals; and the whole, sordid rest of it. Thank god there is no shortage of imperfection in the world; where would youthful aggression find targets? Today, I cringe at my naive conviction that the mythical, functional, middle-class citizen—he who has accepted his physical condition, adapted well to life in human society, accomplished things, contributed to his community, earned his dinner and a place to live; who can pay his bills, and afford a ticket to see my (or Dylan’s) show—isn’t worthy of respect or admiration, but is, rather, dull with sleep and in need of being shocked awake (by morally superior teenagers, electric guitars, screaming, and insults disguised as Truth).

Like every other arrogant college student seduced by left-wing discourses, I was energized by the imperative to make the world a better place. Like my peers, I was good at identifying popular issues and complaining about them as if I’d discovered them myself, adamant about the right and wrong of things while understanding neither intricacies nor convolutions. I embraced the so-called countercultural without recognizing the extent to which it and I had become mainstream. Like my peers, I thought only iconoclasts—belligerent poets, musicians, artists, and proud activists–could see and had answers to the world’s problems.

And, like my peers, I eventually came to grasp the complexities of politics and foreign policy, the nuances of history, the vicissitudes of society, growing less certain, more empathic, and less judgy with each gray hair that sprouted on my head or, let’s face it, chin. One big aha! moment came when I realized that not for anything on earth would I agree be the President of the United States. If I were somehow accidentally elected to fulfill that role and do that job, I’d jump right off the first cliff I came to. Complain? Sure! Criticize? You bet! Take on a position of responsibility for decisions affecting hundreds of millions of people? Nuh-uh.

Dylan wouldn’t have had a stage to perform on, or anyone gathered to listen—no one to “needle” as he once put it —had he not been raised into public awareness and promoted like crazy by the selfsame music industry he censured, and by the audience members whose tastes he cultivated (and benefited from) before flouting them. Dylan was indebted to all those who helped create him as a public figure; who recorded and distributed his music, who sold and bought his records; who paid for tickets (and traveled) to his concerts, where they perhaps expected to be entertained, gratified and delighted to hear beloved songs sung by their revered poet, not to be upbraided, edified, or dismissed.

The kid with the guitar who walked into Greenwich Village a nobody was made a superstar in some part through his talent and determination, and in some larger part by the cultural ethos and economic machinery into which he bought and in which he has fully participated. Dylan rose to success and celebrity not by humbly playing for small crowds gathered in local pubs, but by climbing staircases built by others onto stages others provided him. There, like so many artists privileged to attain the pinnacle, he stood—a self-styled outsider, looking down at the rest of us; at our expectation of a comfortably familiar set list, at at our insistence that he remain fixed in the first, youthful bloom of his talent, ever folksy —and he all but spat. Maybe it was that, or maybe he was clearing his throat, or both. Certainly Dylan (unlike most luminaries who have attained his stature) fully understood the precariousness of his position and wrote about it, notably in the movie’s titular song.

A Complete Unknown, I think, communicates, extraordinarily well, the tension between artists and patrons; between renown and those whose attention bestows it; between the entitlement of celebrities and their indebtedness to fans. It also captures the covert narcissism that characterizes all public figures who claim—from center stage, beneath the spotlight—to hate the spotlight. Dylan, at least in the film’s rendering of him, recoils from veneration while cultivating a godlike mystique. A Complete Unknown is what he strives to (famously, intriguingly, impossibly) be. That complexity, in the hands of an excellent writer and director, and an excellent cast, makes for a compelling story and a good movie. The songs don’t hurt.

Somewhere around Longmont, Michael put on Joan Baez’ Diamonds and Rust, pithy and poignant in the lingering spell of the movie, and as haunting as ever. He then surprised me with Tom Lehrer—who saw the whole 60’s folk and protest scene, if not specifically Dylan (who was both the consummate folk-singer/protester and in a league of his own), from a completely different perspective. Lehrer’s take never grows old. If you don’t remember The Folk Song Army, here it is, and give it a listen, too.

We are the folk song army,
Every one of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice
Unlike the rest of you squares.

There are innocuous folk songs, yeah,
But we regard ’em with scorn.
The folks who sing ’em have no social conscience,
Why, they don’t even care if Jimmy Crack Corn.

If you feel dissatisfaction,
Strum your frustrations away.
Some people may prefer action,
But give me a folk song any old day.

The tune don’t have to be clever,
And it don’t matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line.
It sounds more ethnic if it ain’t good English
And it don’t even gotta rhyme.

Remember the war against Franco?
That’s the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs!

So join in the folk song army!
Guitars are the weapons we bring
To the fight against poverty, war, and injustice.
Ready, aim, sing!

As we passed through the outer suburbs, Michael hit play on a live version of Arlo Guthrie’s shaggy dog, Alice’s Restaurant, which playful teasing abated—twenty minutes later, when we were pulling into our garage—only long enough to satisfy the powerful craving to sing along (for god’s sake, please, if you’ll only stop talking and let us!) with that compelling, elusive chorus. When at last it rolled around, we were right there, twanging.

But, when I fell asleep, it was Dylan lulling me to sleep; Dylan accompanying my dreams; Dylan, all night long.

PS. If you can’t get enough of Lehrer and his take on youthful protesters, here’s another good one.