The manuscript on which Bob Dylan scribbled lyrics while composing what would become one of the most enduring pop songs of all time has been sold at Sotheby's, fetching a world record price over just over $2 million in the process.
'Like A Rolling Stone', which appears on Dylan's album Highway 61 Revisited, was named by Rolling Stone magazine recently as the greatest song ever written and manuscript sold at Sotheby's is "the only known surviving draft of the final lyrics for this transformative rock anthem", according to the Sotheby's listing information.
The draft was written on stationary from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington DC and comes complete with lyric ideas and concepts which didn't make the final version of the song. In the draft, Dylan toys with the idea of rhyming "Al Capone" with the refrain of "like a complete unknown". Another scrapped idea contained the phrase "...dry vermouth, you'll tell the truth."
According to Sotheby's, the seller of the item was a Dylan fan from California who met Dylan "in a non-rock context" and acquired the manuscript from him directly.
In 2010 the same auction house sold handwritten lyrics for The Beatles' 'A Day In The Life' for $1.2 million, a record at the time.
(via The Guardian)
