Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ Draft Sell for $508,000 at Auction

Bob Dylan’s typewritten draft of the “Mr. Tambourine Man” lyrics sold for $508,000 Saturday at an auction featuring 60 Dylan items from the collection of late rock journalist Al Aronowitz.

Other notable sales at Julien’s Auctions’ “Celebrating Bob Dylan: The Aronowitz Archive, T Bone Burnett & More” included a 1983 Fender Telecaster owned and played by Dylan (sold for $222,250), signed handwritten lyrics for “Blowin’ in the Wind” ($44,450), and an original oil painting by the singer from 1968 ($260,000).

In total, the Aronowitz archive totaled $1.5 million at the auction, which took place at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Dylan typed out the early “Mr. Tambourine Man” lyrics in 1964 while crashing at Aronowitz’s New Jersey home. After Dylan left, Aronowitz found the “crumped false starts,” complete with Dylan’s handwritten notes, in a waste basket. However, following Aronowitz’s death in 2005, his family couldn’t locate the lyrics at first.

“This was family lore,” Aronowitz’s son Myles told Rolling Stone in December. “My father talked about it, but he had no idea where they were. He thought he lost them or someone stole them. It took us years going through the archives folder by folder to find them.”

The Aronowitz collection also included sketches Dylan made on a pad in New York’s Plaza Hotel and Aronowitz’s detailed, handwritten notes as he observed Dylan participating in the recording sessions of Doug Sahm & Band in 1972.

“My family and I are thrilled with the auction,” Myles Aronowitz said in a statement following the auction. “These items were evidence of the unique and intimate place my father had in musical and cultural history with his good friend Bob Dylan, and all the other iconic artists of his day.