Losing the Magic Along the Way
It’s bright and sunny in Brussels, the kind of day that makes you forget, just for a second, that you have things to do. And I do have things to do: photo shoots, preparing an exhibition with Irma Vape, sipping overpriced lattes on sunlit terraces, and meticulously counting my last few euros. Writing, as usual, slipped to the bottom of the list.
But thoughts, like smoke, always creep in. Lately, Bob Dylan has taken up space in my mind again—my obsession rekindled, just as it's becoming everyone's obsession. Chalamet already jumped on it, so why not me? Maybe y'all will finally understand my Instagram name.
Recently, a good friend bought me a brand-new harmonica. I lost mine two years ago. Before that, I used to always have one in my pocket, rattling against loose change and forgotten metro tickets. Not that I could play it, really—just one song: Blowin’ in the Wind. The harmonica part, of course.
A few summers ago, in the middle of Bourgogne, in the no man’s land, between shifts and under a sun so hot it seemed like it was burning time itself, I set myself a goal: in two weeks, I had to learn how to play. And I did. It felt like a small, defiant statement, a way to fill time when it stretched out so painfully. Those were my folk music days. Me and my then-girlfriend, spending lockdown singing Donovan and Joan Baez by the river, voices drifting out into the drone of the water like some kind of 60s fever dream. Our version of poetic rebellion. In hindsight, we were two kids, hopping to understand the weight of history, lost in secondhand vinyl and cheap red wine.
A Complete Unknown, the new Dylan biopic, just hit Belgian cinemas a few weeks ago, but I made sure to be there for the premiere before It went out. Paid too much for the ticket at UCG Debrouckere, sat in a dark theater with a few friends, grinning through the whole thing.
What I love most about Bob Dylan is how he makes melancholy feel like an art form. It’s not just sadness—it’s sadness you sink into, wear proudly, hum along to like an old refrain. A kind of bittersweet resignation that somehow feels empowering, like knowing the world is a mess but dancing in the ruins anyway.
But let’s be real: Bob’s a prick, or at least a dirty asshole. A myth, a contradiction, and someone who probably doesn’t deserve half of the reverence he gets. But that’s the thing. The myth is flawed, the man even more so, and yet the music—it still hits like a truth you’ve always known, even when you don’t want to admit it.
There’s something off-putting, though, about seeing one of your private obsessions go global. You know that feeling when a song you thought was just yours starts playing in every café? It’s thrilling, sure, but it’s also unsettling. It’s like hearing a friend you once knew intimately suddenly speaking in a language that’s been watered down for the masses.
That’s how I felt watching ACU. Dylan has never really been mine, but for years, he’s been a personal fixation. The harmonica, the scrappy idealism, the silly self tortured artist posture, the mumbling lyrics I’d dissect like secret messages. He was the soundtrack to afternoons by the river, to late-night conversations that felt profound in the moment, to the delusion that I, too, could be a wandering poet if I just tried hard enough. And until now, I hadn’t shared this with anyone. He was my escape—my train ride out of the misery of endless television and Saturday shopping malls. It was the antidote to the social reproduction I was desperately trying to break free from. A personnal cultural shift. He was my secret, a path I carved to distance myself from a culture that felt devoid of poetry and apology.
But now, blown up on the big screen, mythologized for the masses. His story, polished and packaged, complete with a movie star’s face, ready for everyone to chew on. Suddenly, everyone’s talking about Dylan, dissecting his genius, claiming their piece of the myth. Not that I can blame them. Not that I’m not guilty of it, too.
It’s not that I mind sharing—how could I, with someone as universally beloved as Dylan? But there’s always that fleeting feeling that something’s been taken from you. Like a crack forms between you and the thing you once held close. A reminder that it was never really yours to begin with. It’s like hearing your favorite song in a commercial or seeing your once-obscure band playing at a festival for influencers who wouldn’t know a protest song if it bit them.
But maybe that’s the point. Maybe none of the things we love are meant to stay just ours. Maybe the reason we cling to them—music, books, even harmonicas we can barely play—is because deep down, we want to be part of something bigger. Something universal. Even if it means losing a little of the magic along the way.
xx louis
