Timothée Chalamet and James Blake perform Bob Dylan medley on ‘SNL’
Following his performance as a young Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s acclaimed biopic A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet hosted Saturday Night Live. In his opening monologue, he revealed that he would play personal favourites by ‘The Bard’, more obscure numbers that are less well known to the public.
A Complete Unknown is based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! It follows the American musician as he finds his way in the burgeoning folk scene in New York in the early 1960s, charting his personal life and successes through to his most controversial but significant moment: his use of electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
This week, the film earned eight nominations for the Oscars 2025, including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Actor’ for Chalamet.
The trio of songs Chalamet performed were not featured in A Complete Unknown. They were: ‘Outlaw Blues’ from the 1965 album on which Dylan went electric, Bringing It All Back Home, ‘Three Angels’ from 1970’s New Morning, and ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ from the following year’s Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II.
For Chalamet’s final performance, he was joined by British electronic musician James Blake, who played the piano and supplied backing vocals. They played a medley of ‘Outlaw Blues’ and ‘Three Angels’.
‘Outlaw Blues’ was noticeably more muscular than the original, with a deeply hard-rock feel. A sample from A Complete Unknown played over the palm-muted chords at the start, immediately showing it would respectfully depart from the highlight of Bringing It All Back Home. With delay added to Chalamet’s vocals—which were surprisingly robust live—and the harmonica placed in the centre of the mix, making it more emphatic than on the 1965 song, Blake, Chalamet, and the band refreshed the song for the modern context.
Offering up a stylistic contrast was ‘Three Angels’. While the New Morning song has always been one of Dylan’s most transcendental, serene songs, thanks to his smooth delivery, descriptive lyrics and the organ, again, Blake and Chalamet successfully reworked the song for the modern context without overdoing it.
Leaning into Blake’s distinctive and accomplished sonic character, the classic guitar line still featured, but this cover was also comprised of Blake’s soulful backing vocals, Chalamet slightly changing the lyrics to make them more of rap, and the periodic use of the vocoder to emphasise certain lyrics and create a contemporary feel. They also added something of a climax, where a choir, additional layers of instrumentation and a key change were also added to successfully put their spin on it.
A Complete Unknown is in cinemas now.
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