Bob Dylan’s Discarded ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ Lyrics Fetch $500k at Auction 60 Years Later

At auction, two sheets of Bob Dylan’s preliminary lyrics for ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ brought more than $500,000.
Sixty objects associated with the iconic artist were displayed at Julien’s Auctions sale in Nashville. Photographs, music sheets, a guitar, pencil drawings, and an oil painting that Dylan had done were all part of the collection. Most of the artefacts were from the late music journalist Al Aronowitz’s collection.
Through both online and in-person bidding, the auction raised about $1.5 million, with the typewritten lyrics making up $508,000, or one-third of the total sales—three versions of the 1965 song ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ which serves as the lead track on Dylan’s acoustic side of the album ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, was included in the sheets. The Byrds’ rendition of the song later helped it become even more well-known, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in both the United States and the United Kingdom Singles Charts.
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Aronowitz explained that Dylan’s notes were scrawled on the yellow papers, which were written at his house in New Jersey after Dylan’s split from Suze Rotolo. ‘Can I Get a Witness?’ by Marvin Gaye played constantly in the adjacent room as Dylan typed the first drafts at his breakfast bar, surrounded by cigarette smoke, according to Aronowitz. Dylan would get up and reset the needle every time the record ended, according to Aronowitz.
When Aronowitz first discovered a trash can full of crumpled sheets of false stars, he nearly threw the manuscripts away. But fascinated by the creative process they showed, he decided to pull out and smooth up the pages. He kept them in a file folder that was left unopened for many years.
Myles, Aronowitz’s son, found the lyrics decades later while going through 250 boxes of his father’s vast collection. Although they had assumed the papers were lost, Myles said his father never threw anything away and that the drafts were part of his family’s history.
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The success of the auction was also greatly aided by two more items: a custom Fender guitar from 1983 that brought $225,000 and an oil painting signed by Dylan from 1968 that brought $260,000.
The upcoming movie ‘A Complete Unknown’, which follows Dylan’s early ascent to fame in the 1960s, will centre on the now 83-year-old artist. In order to portray the 10-time Grammy winner, Timothée Chalamet, who plays the lead in the movie, spent years learning how to play the guitar, harmonica, and voice. Chalamet called the process of getting ready for the part “magical.”
–Farheen Ali