Lyrics project for ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ sold for $508,000 at auction in the United States

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Draft lyrics for Bob Dylan’s song “Mr. Tambourine Man” fetched more than half a million dollars in a weekend sale of dozens of items related to the iconic songwriter -American interpreter.

About 60 Dylan items — including photos, sheet music, his guitar, pencil drawings and an oil painting composed by the Nobel Prize winner — were sold Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee, through from Julien’s Auctions.

The items generated nearly $1.5 million in overall sales through in-person and online bidding, the auction house said. Julien said 50 of the items, including the 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 versions of the 1965 song, were written on two sheets of yellow paper, with Dylan’s annotation on the third version.

Dylan wrote the original draft lyrics at the journalist’s New Jersey home, according to Julien, citing a 1973 newspaper article by Aronowitz.

Dylan sat “with my portable typewriter at my white Formica breakfast bar in a swirl of chain-lit cigarette smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers tapping out the words” on paper, Aronowitz wrote.

The third version, although close to the final version, still had significant variations from the final lyrics, the auction house said on its website.

The song appeared as the lead track on the acoustic side of his 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home” and was Dylan’s first composition to reach No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K., Julien said. .

Other top-selling items Saturday included a 1968 Dylan signed oil on canvas painting for $260,000 and a 1983 custom Fender guitar he owned and played for $225,000.

Dylan, now 83, is gaining attention with last month’s release of the film “A Complete Unknown,” which focuses on his rise to stardom in the early 1960s. Dylan is played by Timothée Chalamet, who worked for several years on the role, which involves singing and playing guitar.