When Dylan went spiritual in the late seventies, some feared the lord had snatched his phlegmy tones from the pop thorax forever. In 2009, though, our cynicism felt a long way off, because that's when he released a video so brilliantly crap it was unmistakably the work of an advanced piss-taker.
As overdressed revelers pretend to be at a German barn dance, the video has Dylan act (and dress) like a school play’s idea of a tipsy granddad. Then, two-thirds in, a man in a suit mysteriously barrels downstairs pursued by two flat-cap thugs, whose dreams of a speaking part in a Guy Ritchie film are fading rapidly. The man squats on a bookshelf before throwing glasses around, swinging pointlessly from a chandelier and diving out the window, evidently far too busy to explain his part in the plot.It’s hard to tell what exactly Dylan is parodying here - the awkward moment when the camera leers at the lone black guy sort of hints at Crimbo’s lack of religious diversity, maybe? But hey, nothing says Christmas like a deeply indulgent cash-splash founded on a slightly baffling narrative.