Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

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About

Genius Annotation

This song opens Dylan’s 1965 Bringing it all Back Home’s second, acoustic folk side, which comes after seven mostly electric, perky, dense and not rarely harsh pieces (partly a prelude to “Like a Rolling Stone” etc.).

The contrast is astounding really, it is a sweet simple song, mesmerizing in its pace and mood, with sad lyrics which portrays with a musical, extremely suggestive language, transparent in its concreteness too, the effort to find solace and meaning in the balm of fantasy and childhood like imagination, an effort obstacled by daily weariness and insatisfaction. Very likely too is the reading that suggests Mr. Tambourine Man is “the muse of inspiration”, and hence the song to be both the request of the inspiration and the very result of that.

The song was later covered, and brought at number 1 on Billboard Hot 100, by the rock group The Byrds.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did Bob Dylan say about "Mr. Tambourine Man"?
Genius Answer

“Mr. Tambourine Man,” I think, was inspired by Bruce Langhorne. Bruce was playing guitar with me on a bunch of the early records. On one session, [producer] Tom Wilson had asked him to play tambourine. And he had this gigantic tambourine. It was like, really big. It was as big as a wagon-wheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind. He was one of those characters … he was like that. I don’t know if I’ve ever told him that.
-Liner notes for Biograph

Credits
Produced By
Written By
Guitar
Vocals
Harmonica
Recorded At
Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, NY.
Release Date
March 22, 1965
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