Draft of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Man with a Tambourine” Lyrics Fetches $500,000 at Auction

Rare bob dylan sheet music auctioned

Original sheet music for lyrics from an early draft of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” sold at auction for over $500,000.

• READ MORE: Timothée Chalamet on the role of Bob Dylan in “Total Unknown”

Details of the auction and the song’s history

With Dylan fever in the air due to a recent film release, Complete Unknown, the timing was perfect for the two yellow sheets to be offered for sale at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, California.

The pages contain three typewritten lyrics from early drafts of the song, along with Dylan’s own handwritten notes in the margins. These sheets are believed to have been printed at the residence of music journalist Al Aronowitz in March 1964, during a night when the artist worked on rewriting the song using Aronowitz’s typewriter.

At the auction, the pages fetched $508,000 (£417,000), while other Dylan-related lots included a 1983 Fender Telecaster and a 1968 oil painting created and signed by the legendary singer-songwriter.

In March 1964, Bob Dylan wrote and re-wrote “Mr. Tambourine” at Al Aronowitz’s New Jersey home. Aronowitz rescued the crumpled lyrics from the trash, which are now expected to fetch $600,000 at auction. pic.twitter.com/cLTt6UDEIk

— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) January 15, 2025

“Mr. Tambourine Man” was featured on the iconic 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home”. A month later, the song reached number one in the US and UK through an electric cover by The Byrds, marking Dylan’s first composition to top both charts.

Aronowitz stated that he “discovered a trash can full of crumpled false starts” for the song (via BBC). “I took the crumpled sheets of paper, smoothed them out, read the crazy jumping lines, smiled to myself at the jumps that never landed, and then put the sheets in a folder,” he recounted.

The people’s icon is portrayed by Timothée Chalamet in Complete Unknown, which is set to premiere in UK cinemas on Friday (January 17). The film narrates Dylan’s rise as a star of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s and his controversial live performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where he played with electric instruments for the first time.

NME has released a special print magazine dedicated to the film and Dylan’s legacy. The 26-page review is available now – find out where to get it here.

NME awarded Complete Unknown four stars, stating: “The most important (and often the most difficult) job in any musical film is getting the music right. And this is the nail. If you’re new to Bob, you’ll leave the theater ready to dive into his back catalogue. If you’re already a fan, you’ll spend the next few weeks putting together playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading about scenes you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why making this film was a good idea—a crazy idea, but a good idea.”