(Nashville) The draft of the lyrics of the song Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan has been sold for more than half a million US dollars (US$723,000) as part of a sale of several dozen items linked to the iconic American singer-songwriter.
Posted at 5:05 p.m.
About 60 Bob Dylan items – including photos, sheet music, his guitar, pencil drawings and an oil painting by the Nobel Prize winner – were sold Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee , through Julien’s Auctions.
The items generated nearly US$1.5 million in total sales through in-person and online bidding, the auction house said. Julien’s mentioned that 50 of the items, including the draft lyrics that received the highest sale price, came from the personal collection of the late music journalist Al Aronowitz.
The typed lyrics, which covered three draft versions of the 1965 song, were written on two sheets of yellow paper, with Bob Dylan’s annotation on the third version.
The singer-songwriter wrote the original draft of the lyrics in the journalist’s home in New Jersey, according to Julien’s, citing a 1973 newspaper article written by Al Aronowitz.
-« [Bob Dylan était assis] with my portable typewriter at my white Formica breakfast bar in a swirl of chain-lit cigarette smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers typing the words” on photocopy paper, Mr. Aronowitz wrote.
The third draft, although close to the final version, still had significant variations from the final lyrics, the auction house pointed out on its website.
The song appeared as the lead track on the acoustic side of his album Bringing It All Back Home from 1965 and was the first Bob Dylan composition to reach number one in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to Julien’s.
Other top-selling items Saturday included a 1968 Bob Dylan-signed oil on canvas for US$260,000 and a 1983 custom Fender guitar he owned and played for US$225,000.
Bob Dylan, now 83, attracts attention with last month’s release of the film A Complete Unknownwhich focuses on his rise to stardom in the early 1960s. He is played by Timothée Chalamet, who worked for several years on the role, which involves singing and playing guitar.
