A rare glimpse into the mind of one of history’s greatest songwriters will change hands at Julien's next month, when the auction house sells a set of three progressive working drafts of the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
And they were almost lost forever.
Inspired by Bruce Langhorne, a guitarist who played on the original track, Dylan began writing the song in 1964 during a trip to Madri Gras, then at the home of rock journalist Al Aronowitz. He first recorded the song the following year.
It was Aronowitz who saved the musical treasures from being lost forever, finding them in a trash can “full of crumpled false starts” and nearly tossing them in the garbage before “a whispering emotion caught [him], like a breeze that sometimes gently stops you cold just because of its own ghostly power to make you notice it,” he wrote in a 1973 article for the Sunday News.
“I took the crumpled sheets, smoothed them out, read the crazy leaping lines, smiled to myself at the leaps that never landed and then put the sheets into a file folder. I still have them somewhere.”
With “A Complete Unknown,” the Timothee Chalamet-led Dylan biopic, debuting this Christmas, the annotated lyrics are set to go under the hammer in January, carrying a high estimate of $600,000.
Dylan’s working draft of “Like a Rolling Stone” sold for a record $2 million at auction in 2014.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” appeared on his “Bringing it All Back Home” album in 1965.
While Dylan’s version was a hit, it would be the Byrds who might have had an even greater impact on the song’s popularity. The British band covered the song as their debut single, releasing it a month before Dylan ironically.
The Byrds' version became the first Dylan composition to hit the top spot on both the U.S. and U.K. charts.
The song was even named twice on Rolling Stone’s 500 best songs ever list, one from each artist.
Julien’s working lyrics exhibit the evolution of Dylan’s process, as lines are removed, added and altered at length across each subsequent draft. One notable difference between progressions is seen in the song’s third verse. In the first draft, it reads:
"tho you might hear laughter ringin', swingin' madly 'cross the sun / do not pay it any due / for it is not aimed at you / it's meant for no one / an you might hear traces of vague ramblin reels of ryme [sic] / to your tamborine [sic] in time / do not pay it any mind / it's just but a twisted sign / of unconscious homage sign / to the ground I know an go on"
By the third draft in the lot it had been elongated and had nearly reached the state seen in the final recording:
“"Tho you might hear laughin spinnin swingin madly thru the sun / It's not aimed at anyone, It's just escapin on the run-perhaps if nothin else, to heat the frozen meadows / an if you hear soft traces of prancin rings of rhyme [marginal alternate: bracelet reels of rhyme] / to your tambourine in time / you needn't pay it any mind / It's just a ragged clown behind / an if his eyes look blind don't worry non for he just chasing round his shadow [autograph marginal alternate: it's just a shadow that he's chasing].”
The lyrics, saved by Aronowitz, who died in 2005, are being sold as part of dozens of items from his archives, including a 1983 Fender Telecaster and rare pieces from Dylan’s career.
A signed one-of-a-kind IONIC original disc for the 2021 studio recording of “The Times They Are A-Changin,” a piece of recording technology meant to capture the perfect sound and avoid degradation afflicting vinyl records, is also on the block with a high estimate of $600,000.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.