Watch Bill Murray Attempt to Sing a Bob Dylan Song in an Exclusive Clip from 'St. Vincent'
Bill Murray is no Hugh Jackman – you won’t catch him crooning show tunes on the Broadway stage (though to be fair, Hugh Jackman is no Bill Murray, either). But the comic actor (and source of all that is funny and great on the internet) loves to sing. He’s proudly put his not-necessarily-great pipes to use since his days on Saturday Night Live, has dueted with the likes of Eric Clapton and Clint Eastwood, and is famously known to crash the occasionally karaoke party. Because this is how he rolls.
He’ll even sing in the occasional movie. Who can forget his wonderfully off-key rendition of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” from Lost in Translation? And in his latest film, St. Vincent, Murray takes on one of the greats: Bob Dylan. You can watch this melding-of-the-masters in the exclusive clip above, which finds Murray’s grumpy war vet smoking a cigarette and failing miserably at watering a plant as he sings along to Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” that’s playing on an old Walkman. (Between St. Vincent and Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014 is a good year for Walkman nostalgia.)
The film stars Murray as a misanthropic next-door neighbor to a single mother (Melissa McCarthy) and her 12-year-old son (Jaeden Lieberher). Calling himself St. Vincent de Van Nuys, he eventually become the kid’s unlikeliest of mentors.
As far as we know, the actor has never dueted with Dylan, but there was a tale that surfaced out of Minnesota in 1997, where the actor turned up at one of the folk singer’s concerts held at the stadium of the minor-league St. Paul Saints (of whom Murray is part-owner and “team psychologist,” natch). According to a report from CityPages’ Reed Fischer, Murray surprised Dylan after the show, but was rendered speechless when the singer told him, “Bill, you’re a funny guy. You make me laugh.” Wait until Dylan sees this movie.
St. Vincent opens in limited engagement Oct. 10 and then everywhere Oct. 24.
