Bob Dylan has been tweeting! Since Sept. 25, Dylan's account, which historically has been a no-nonsense management-run information source, has pivoted to personal messages from the man himself, starting with the concise but heartfelt "Happy Birthday Mary Jo! See you in Frankfort." Since then there have been lengthier dispatches about subjects including Bob Newhart's death, Dylan's favored New Orleans restaurants, and running into a professional hockey player in a Prague elevator. It's kooky and fun. Keep tweeting, Bob.
Some people at Saturday Night Live noticed this social media activity and have channeled it for a hyper-specific bit. In a promo for this weekend's John Mulaney-hosted episode — featuring musical guest Chappell Roan, who does not appear here — Mulaney discovers that his cue cards are directing him into long and meandering anecdotes. When he pauses to ask who's writing this stuff, it's revealed that Dylan has been hired as a writer. He's played by James Austin Johnson, who showed off strong impressions of different Dylan singing eras in a Jimmy Fallon interview last year. Eventually, he gets up there to show Mulaney and Jane Wickline how it's done.
Below, check out the promo, and stick around for Johnson's prior Dylan impressions and Dylan's tweets.
At the hotel in Frankfurt there was a publishing convention and every room was taken, parties all night. I didn’t know there were so many book publishers in the world. I was trying to find Crystal Lake Publishing so I could congratulate them on publishing The Great God Pan, one…
— Bob Dylan (@bobdylan) October 23, 2024
UPDATE: And here's another John Mulaney promo, this time with Chappell Roan.
