Trying to discern Bob Dylan‘s motivations for just about any action is a fool’s errand. He’s an extremely private person who loves nothing more than confounding his fans with jarring left and right turns nobody could have seen coming. Why did he largely stop playing guitar onstage two decades ago? What are his current religious beliefs? Was he 100 percent serious with that Christmas album? We just have no idea.
But it seems like a pretty large coincidence that he brought “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” back into his live show Sunday night, just 11 days after the trailer dropped for A Complete Unknown. Timothée Chalamet‘s rendition of the song is the soundtrack to the entire trailer, and it’s the first time the public had a chance to hear his Dylan voice. It’s the only song to appear in the trailer, which has been viewed over 4 million times.
And as A Complete Unknown director James Mangold told Rolling Stone, Dylan has been involved in the movie. “The first time I sat down with him,” Mangold said, “Bob said, ‘What’s this movie about, Jim?’ I said, ‘It’s about a guy who’s choking to death in Minnesota and leaves behind all his friends and family and reinvents himself in a brand new place, makes new friends, builds a new family, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again — and runs away.” Bob smiled and told Mangold, “I like that.”
Dylan broke the song “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” out seven tracks into his set at the Toyota Amphitheater in Wheatland, California, on Sunday night. He hadn’t played it since 2017, and his setlist has been essentially locked in since the second show of the Outlaw tour in late June. Here’s a fan-shot video of the moment. (The video is less than great. Click here for an audio version.)
Trending
He also brought back “Scarlet Town” for the first time since opening night of the Outlaw tour on June 21. To make way for the two additions, he cut “Can’t Wait” and “I’ll be Your Baby Tonight.” At the prior show in Mountain View, California, he welcomed guitarist Elvis Bishop onto the stage for “Early Roman Kings” and “Can’t Wait.”
The tour continues Wednesday night at the Fort Idaho Center in Boise, Idaho. It wraps up on September 20 at BankNH Pavilion in Gilford, New Hampshire. The following month, Dylan heads to October to Europe for a long run of shows. It wraps up November 14 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. That means he’ll be back in America when A Complete Unknown hits theaters in December. It’s hard to imagine him coming to the premiere and posing for photos on the red carpet with Chalamet, but he’s surprised us many times before.
