Two fragile sheets of yellowed stationery, crumpled yet still in one piece, bear witness to the creative spark of their renowned author. Typewritten lyrics, adorned with hastily scribbled alterations, provide a rare peek into the imaginative genesis of one of the 1960s most celebrated tunes. According to Julien's Auctions, a California-based auction house that orchestrated the sale, the preliminary drafts of Bob Dylan's 1965 chart-topper, "Mr. Tambourine Man," fetched an astonishing price of over half a million dollars this weekend.
Accompanying these delicate manuscripts were numerous other treasures from Dylan's nascent career in the 1960s, including sketches and photographs, all up for grabs. These lyrics were part of the extensive personal archive of the prolific rock 'n' roll journalist, Al Aronowitz, who etched his own legacy as a chronicler and confidant to the era's artists and musicians, Dylan among them.
"He was a hoarder of memories," reminisced Myles Aronowitz, Al's son, who has spent years sorting through approximately 250 boxes filled with his father's personal collection—a time capsule encapsulating the essence of 1960s music and literature. For Dylan scholars, these lyrics offer a rare, early window into the singer-songwriter's creative process and the intricacies of his songwriting craft.
"It's utterly astounding and serves as testament to the workings of genius," said Richard Thomas, a classics professor at Harvard who also lectures on Dylan's writing. The drafts of "Mr. Tambourine Man" were, as Myles Aronowitz put it, "a family legend." His late father, who passed away in 2005, couldn't recall the whereabouts or how he had stored them away. For years, the family believed the drafts were irretrievably lost.
Recently, while organizing his father's collection, Myles Aronowitz and his wife unearthed these papers. They contemplate organizing another auction but harbor the aspiration to eventually donate the archives to a library or museum. "It's nothing short of remarkable," Myles Aronowitz exclaimed about the collection, which boasts rare home recordings from the titans of music from that era, alongside letters, notes, and photographs.
In a 1973 column for The New York Sunday News, later preserved on his personal website, Al Aronowitz recounted the evening when Dylan first penned the song at the journalist's New Jersey abode.
Aronowitz recounted the magical night when Bob penned "Mr. Tambourine Man" in his Berkeley Heights, New Jersey home. There, amidst a haze of chain-smoked Camel cigarettes swirling around the white Formica breakfast bar, Bob sat at Aronowitz's portable typewriter. His bony fingers, adorned with long nails, danced across the stolen canary-colored paper scavenged from a Saturday Evening Post, bringing the lyrics to life.
In the adjacent room, Marvin Gaye's voice echoed through the six-foot speakers of Aronowitz's hi-fi, belting out "Can I Get A Witness?" Each time the record concluded, Bob would rise from his typing, placing the needle back at the beginning, seemingly lost in the rhythmic melody.
The following morning, as Dylan slept on Aronowitz's couch, the latter found himself emptying the trash can. A subtle whisper of emotion ensnared him as his eyes caught sight of the discarded, yellowed sheets peeking out. He rescued them from oblivion, reading the raw lyrics of what would become a timeless classic and carefully preserving them.
At the time of its creation, "Mr. Tambourine Man" bore witness to a personal turmoil in Dylan's life—a recent breakup with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, who had graced the cover of his renowned 1963 album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." The song eventually found its place on Dylan's 1965 album, "Bringing It All Back Home."
Recently, the Nobel Prize-winning artist has been thrust into the limelight once more with the release of the biopic "A Complete Unknown," a chronicle of his meteoric rise in 1960s New York. Smaller screens buzzed with excitement when Dylan joined the social media platform TikTok, mere days before its impending shutdown in the United States.
In a humorous nod to the app's uncertain fate, Dylan posted a clip from a 1960s news conference. Behind a bank of microphones, he sat briefly before exclaiming, "Good god, I must leave right away," a phrase that seemed to resonate with both irony and poignancy.
