Oops, Bob Did It Again: Dylan Inexplicably Posts 2016 Video of MGK In-Store Performance on Instagram

If you’ve seen A Complete Unknown, or gone to see Bob Dylan in concert over the past few decades, or checked out the the Nobel Prize winner’s social media feeds recently then you know that the rock and roll bard’s factory setting is inscrutable.

Which, kind of, explains Dylan’s latest inexplicable Instagram missive: a no-context re-post of a 2016 in-store performance by Machine Gun Kelly at Park Ave. CDs in Orlando, FL in 2016. Why MGK? Why this clip? We will never know, but both Kelly and his good pal, singer/producer Mod Sun, were beyond pumped at the unexpected shout-out. (Check out the post here).

“you having a phone is so rad,” Kelly wrote in the comments on the post, with Mod Sun adding, “This is my favorite thing that’s ever happened on the internet.” Other commenters also weighed in with a mix of excitement and confusion, writing, “Bob probably thought this was [A Complete Unknown star] Timothée Chalamet so he reposted it,” “Think MGK has now won against Eminem. The greatest poet of all time has just reposted him,” “I love when Dylan fans get riled ’cause he throws a curveball,” “Bob respectfully what the f–k is this” and “Not a fan of MGK, myself… Genius sees genius. This guy can spit and it seems at least one person named Bob can hear it clearly.”

While Dylan has posted some on-brand messages lately, including a tribute to his friend and late bandmate Garth Hudson last month following the death of The Band’s longtime keyboardist, the MGK love is in keeping with his out-of-left-field online activity. Earlier this year, the 83-year-old folk rock legend joined TikTok just days before what was slated to be a ban of the app, posting a kind of career retrospective clip, followed by a half dozen other archival videos.

Over on X, the past four months have found Dylan musing about seeing a Nick Cave show in Paris and being impressed by the singer’s moving track “Joy” and giving props to “brilliant actor” Chalamet’s role in A Complete Unknown, predicting that the actor would be “completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”

Classic Dylan.

He’s also paid tribute to another old bandmate, late rockin’ blues giant Paul Butterfield, and, last week, posted another tribute, this time to late bluegrass/country great Don Reno.

And if you scroll through the rest of his Instagram feed, over the past two months, mixed in with promos for his ongoing Rough and Rowdy Ways world tour, you’ll see an archival video of Les Paul introducing late Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen at a Les Paul tribute show in 1988, a random Ricky Nelson performance clip, a snippet of director Fritz Lang’s 1952 noir romance Clash By Night starring Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe and a live performance video of beloved guitarist Django Reinhardt.

Mix in a post of the classic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” and a reading of the “Last Testament” of the outlaw (and older brother of Jesse) Frank James.

What does it all mean? Who knows? But in the immortal words of Dylan: “don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”