A Complete Unknown: Reflections on Disruption and Change
I saw A Complete Unknown on Christmas Day and I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.
A few caveats before we dive in:
Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen the movie and want to go in fresh, bookmark this for later.
This isn’t a review. It’s my take on the themes and questions the film stirred up. I’m not here to fact-check what was real versus what was fictionalized. I’m responding to the story the filmmakers chose to tell.
"A Complete Unknown" follows Bob Dylan’s early years in New York City - his connections with Pete Seeger, his reverence for Woody Guthrie, and his transformation from unknown to folk darling to revolutionary artist.
In one of the film’s opening scenes, Pete Seeger testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. It’s a moment that paints him not just as a musician, but as a cultural dissenter and fierce advocate for justice.
He tells the judge:
“I am here because some second-rate politician from Louisiana decided that he don’t like a song I sang or maybe he don’t like some of the folks I might have sung it to… Woody once said that a good song can only do good, and the song I’m in hot water for here, it’s a good song.”
He even tries to play the song for the judge but the judge refuses to listen. It’s a defining moment. Seeger stands as a catalyst for change, using music to challenge the system.
He’s also positioned as a protector of true folk music. According to MasterClass, traditional folk has three core qualities: acoustic instruments, English lyrics, and regional authenticity. Folk music is an oral tradition. And it's where Dylan started, authentically, arriving in NY and immediately looking to meet Woody Guthrie.
Just four years later, Dylan takes center stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival - poised to change everything.
Dylan arrives at a moment of artistic pivot. He’s been experimenting with electric sound, and he wants to plug in. He is fully aware of what it means to break from folk purity on that stage, of all places. His performance becomes a seismic shift, not just in sound but in message.
Seeger, who once claimed “a good song can only do good,” suddenly resists the disruption. He sees Dylan’s move not as evolution, but as betrayal. When Dylan asks if he’s heard the new album, Seeger admits he hasn’t and he doesn’t need to. With this response, Seeger becomes a mirror of the judge we met at the start of the film.
Just as Seeger’s "This Land Is Your Land" was originally a protest against the status quo, we now watch him become attached to one. He credits Dylan with popularizing folk, but when Dylan begins pushing its boundaries, Seeger retreats.
This tension, between reverence and reinvention, is timeless.
And we can have compassion for Seeger. He is focused on what he’s scared to lose: the purity of the music he’s devoted his life to, his cultural authority, the moral clarity he stood on just a few years earlier. His relevance. His identity as an artist. In Dylan’s electric shift, Seeger sees not just a change in sound, but a signal that he might be left behind by the change that’s coming.
But maybe Seeger wasn’t just reacting to the fact of change but the pace of it. Four years earlier, Dylan had just arrived in New York. Now here he was, upending a genre in one electrified set. For leaders who are stewards of a tradition, fast and total change can feel less like progress and more like whiplash. It’s one thing to evolve. It’s another to feel like you’re being eclipsed. Could Dylan have honored the tradition more before breaking it open? Would the impact have landed differently?
It reminded me of Taylor Swift’s genre jump, or Beyoncé’s country detour. As an aging music fan, I know I go to shows hoping to hear the songs I know and love and, specifically, not the new stuff. Change is hard, even when it’s wrapped in melody.
Music is a relatively safe space to explore our resistance to change. We might grumble about a new sound, but we’re rarely threatened by it. Real life? That’s a whole different track list.
Fixating on what we will lose and not considering what we might gain is an instinct shows up far beyond the stage. We cling to what’s familiar. We resist the electric guitar.
But the times, as Dylan said, are still a-changin’. Whether we choose to plug in or not—that’s up to us.
Leadership in complex times often demands that we step out of the folk song we’ve always sung—the clear, acoustic version everyone expects—and instead pick up the electric guitar. Not to be rebellious for rebellion’s sake, but to meet the moment with honesty and range. Leadership is about distinguishing what’s sacred from what’s merely familiar—and having the courage to evolve when the context demands it.
Sometimes the crowd will boo. Sometimes the old guard will walk away. But real leadership asks: how will you know when it's time to plug in?