Bob Dylan Posts

Duluth Deep Dive #3: Bob Dylan and the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub

Apr 06, 2025 2 Comments

Bob Dylan’s father leads a dance in Duluth, The Duluth Herald, October 28, 1931.

The free, open access, online Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, supported by recently cut grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, lets you do your own deep dives into genealogy, the history of a home or business, or just about anything that has happened in Duluth or throughout Minnesota. This month’s deep dive shows you how the site works by using Bob Dylan’s Duluth family history as an example.

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Fun with Google AI Overview

Apr 01, 2025 No Comments

Google search results are now summarized by an “AI Overview.” I tested it with three questions.

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How Minnesota shaped the ‘freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

Jan 01, 2025 No Comments

This installment of the WCCO radio program A Closer Look with Laura Oakes delves into Bob Dylan’s Minnesota roots. It aired Dec. 19. Duluth comes up.


History, Music

The Real Bob Dylan: An Intimate Look with Louie Kemp

Dec 26, 2024 No Comments

Recorded in 2019 at the Duluth Armory, this previously unreleased PBS North interview with Bob Dylan’s lifelong friend Louis Kemp offers insights into the life of the famous musician born in Duluth.


Music, Videos ,

A Complete Unknown: Director James Mangold on Bob Dylan

Dec 18, 2024 No Comments

JP Olsen of WDSE 103.3 FM “The North” interviews James Mangold, director of A Complete Unknown, a biographical drama exploring the early life of Bob Dylan. Mangold delves into the creative process, revealing how Timothée Chalamet embodied the spirit of Dylan, and discusses the enduring power of Dylan’s music and its affect on a new generation.


Music, Videos ,

Duluth on Chalamet’s lips

Dec 13, 2024 No Comments

Duluth keeps getting mentioned in the publicity tour for the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown. At the 6:53 mark in the clip above Timothée Chalamet says, regarding singing live-to-camera in the film, “The worst thing we could have done with a Bob Dylan biopic is sanitize it, to make it sound clean … This is a man from iron ore country, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Hibbing, Duluth.” Not that Minneapolis is so dirty, but OK.


Music, Videos ,

Chalamet in Minnesota on Dylan Film

Dec 08, 2024 No Comments

Duluth comes up throughout.


Videos ,

Chalamet utters the word Duluth in recent interview

Nov 13, 2024 No Comments

Around the 43-minute mark, Timothée Chalamet talks for a couple minutes about visiting the region, specifically the Duluth-Hibbing axis. He made the trip alone while preparing to play Bob Dylan in the current biopic. The Bob Dylan house gets a mention around the 47-minute mark.


Videos ,

Trampled by Turtles – “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”

Sep 05, 2024 No Comments

Trampled by Turtles performed the Bob Dylan classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” at Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine on June 30.


Music, Videos ,

Build a Goddamn Bob Dylan Statue Already

Jun 01, 2024 9 Comments

For real, I think there needs to be more serious discussion about a Duluth Bob Dylan statue. He’s the (checks notes) greatest songwriter in the world (the Nobel Prize people compared him to Homer and Blake), and Duluth is his (checks notes again) literal birthplace. Where did I read — perhaps buried in the epic comments of this PDD Facebook post — that local/regional Dylan relatives disfavor statues, as opposed to a nice plaque or something? An MPR article cites “a Dylan family member” who states a preference for educational work instead. I get it. But Dylan must have dozens of relatives, did we ask them all? Do we have to ask any of them, since Dylan belongs to the world?

I also get that statues are falling out of favor and may become problematic. The meaning of a statue can change. Maybe it would be better to just name a street, or a music center, or erect a plaque — something you can quietly change up or take down in a hurry if history reverses on you. But respectfully, I worry that plaques and manhole covers are simply too boring to honor the greatest songwriter in the world besides Taylor Swift.

You think Taylor Swift will only get some nice manhole covers? You think they won’t build a statue in her hometown by the time she’s Dylan’s current age of 82?

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History , ,

Jesus Christ Meets Bob Dylan in a Hotel Room in Tucson, 1978

May 25, 2024 7 Comments

Bob: I’m ready to accept you, Lord.

Jesus: Not so fast there Bob. I need you to do something first.

Bob: Name it Lord.

Jesus: I need you to rub out Jimmy Gravante.

Bob (stunned): The hitman?

Jesus: Your successor in the Duluth family, after you got out and became — this (gestures around). You know Jimmy — the sniper who blew you off your motorcycle in 1966 in Woodstock.

Bob: He hit the bike, man, not me. Sniper my ass.

Jesus: I’m going to need you to check your tone.

Bob: I’m sorry Lord. It’s just that he wasn’t even at 200 yards. He’s more like a potshot expert than a sniper. And my divorce is killing me. I just got off a world tour and my adrenal glands feel squeezed dry like little raisins. Think I’m coming down with something (sniffles).

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Bob Dylan on Duluth and Minnesota

May 18, 2024 3 Comments

Some Duluthians think Bob Dylan hates Duluth and Minnesota. What has Bob Dylan actually said?

I’d heard rumors Dylan was a Duluth hater, but then I read the liner notes to his 1974 album Planet Waves, where he wrote: “Duluth! Duluth — where Baudelaire Lived/& Goya cashed in his Chips, where Joshua brought/the house down!” These are not the words of someone who hates Duluth. These words lionize the city in terms of literature and mythology. A song on the album mentions Duluth too. From “Something There is About You“: “Thought I’d shaken the wonder/And the phantoms of my youth/Rainy days on the great lakes/Walkin’ the hills of old Duluth.” Duluth as a city of wonder and phantoms: who among us cannot relate?

Growing up in Hibbing, Dylan had family in Duluth and Superior. As a teen he went to Minneapolis more and more, and that became his jumping-off point to the world. But the Northland never left him. From his autobiography Chronicles, Volume One (2004 edition), one reads many references to Duluth, Hibbing, Minneapolis, and Minnesota as a whole.

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Music ,

My phone call with Kathy Cargill

May 05, 2024 No Comments

Videos

100 Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

May 22, 2023 No Comments

The Committee for Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan, Duluth’s premier Bob Dylan monuments organization, remains hard at work designing giant colossal statues of Bob Dylan.


Videos ,

Press releases supporting Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

Mar 26, 2023 2 Comments

The Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan is pleased about the following press releases from the Building Trades and Essential Health:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MN Trades and Building Council Endorses Plan to Build 12 Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

[Duluth, MN] – The Minnesota Trades and Building Council (MTBC) is proud to announce its full support for the construction of 12 giant colossal statues of Bob Dylan.

The MTBC believes that this project will bring significant economic benefits to the local community, and we look forward to working with the Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan to make this project a reality.

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