A Complete Unknown: Bob Dylan’s Oscar-worthy performance reveals powerful money lessons

A young musician hitchhikes his way from Minnesota to meet Woody Guthrie who was in a hospital. He meets Pete Seeger, another folk legend who is visiting Guthrie at the hospital. The young man sings ‘A Song to Woody’ and both Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie recognise that the lad can carry a tune.

The film shows us how Bob Dylan sang in nightclubs across Greenwich Village, earning fame and fans along the way. How he seduced the audience with his words and how he became irresistible to women quickly is the way the film shares his story. But the essence of the film is how he remains untouched by the fame or care for the trappings of it all. The title does justice to the film. 

Dylan fans will realise that many parts of the story are fictionalised to add drama to the film, but the music is so great, these creative liberties matter little. The film does not judge him or idolise him (as we tend to heroes in biopics in India) and the songs resonate with you long after the film is over.

How can we connect personal finance and money lessons to such a legendary musician?

How does it feel?/To be on your own/A complete unknown..

One of the most influential revolutionary songs from Dylan, ‘Like a Rolling Stone‘ is the song that changed Bob Dylan from a folk singer to a rock star. The song is at once self deprecating and cynical. Bob Dylan seems to be making a point about running after fame and fortune. He had nothing at one point in his life and he had the world at his feet too. And neither gave him happiness. This song resonated with so many that Rolling Stones, Green Day, Cher and even Jimi Hendrix played their versions of the song. In fact Jimi Hendrix is supposed to have said, ‘It made me feel that I wasn’t the only one who’d ever felt this low.’

Fans know that Dylan does not ever say ‘I’ or ‘me’ in the song. He’s talking about a girl, isn’t he? Someone who has seen fame and is now wandering about impoverished?

If you think about it, we never think that bad times could ever overrun our lives when we are as the song reiterates: Once upon a time you dressed so fine/ Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?

Your money manager will tell you to put away a little more when the times are good because it doesn’t take much to lose those fine clothes and the house. Very few of us are crazy risk takers and can afford to be rich one day and be homeless on the other. A note of caution there, innit?

Just saying, on June 24, 2014, Sotheby sold the handwritten lyrics of the song ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ for two million dollars. The song is in Bob Dylan’s album ‘HighWay 61 Revisited’. If you search for the vinyl single from Columbia (6 minutes long) or inherited it from a family member, keep it safe. And revere it. I will never forget what Bruce Springsteen said about the song: That snare shot sounded like somebody’d kicked the door open to your mind… The way Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind.

‘It ain’t me, babe!’

The on stage chemistry between Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) and the barefoot Madonna Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) is so palpable, it makes you sigh quietly in the theatre and you know why his girlfriend Sylvia Russo (played by Elle Fanning) runs away back home. Look at the lyrics: You say you’re lookin’ for someone/ Who’ll promise never to part/ Someone to close his eyes for you/ Someone to close his heart/ Someone to die for you and more/ But it ain’t me, babe/ No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe/ It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe

Very clearly it sounds like a brutal reminder that the relationship is over. And yet, Dylan tells us to be careful in love. Do they expect you to open all doors for them? Do they expect that you will drop everything and be with them? Then there’s a big money lesson hidden in the song.

Financial instruments make everything so attractive that you begin to believe that investing everything that you own is the right thing to do. Alas, you have to learn to be like Bob Dylan as an investor: Love Sylvie because she was innocent and giving in her love, love Joan because of how they resonated with their music. Simply put, you need ‘a diversified portfolio’, ‘don’t put your eggs in one basket’.

I must confess that I have been a Dylan crazy person ever since I inherited a much thumbed Chronicles (apparently there are 148 other non fiction books written about Bob Dylan) as a teenager. And I thought I would be immune to Chalamet’s charm. But after watching the film, I came away giddy and star-struck, wishing I had been born earlier to see Dylan rock those extra dark sunglasses (Chalamet wore Bausch & Lomb version of the Ray Ban 1960 Caribbean, Chrome Hearts, Prada BO2S – the 2025 series), or watch him face hostile crowds as he went electric in Newport. Even if you haven’t heard a single Dylan song, take inspiration from this review on Letterboxd:

Women: ‘You’re such an asshole. How do you make such good music?!’

Bob Dylan:*unintelligible mumbling*

Women: ‘F***, you’re so hot’

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.