The only known surviving draft of the final lyrics to Bob Dylan’s phenomenal hit, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, was auctioned and earned its seller a tidy sum of $2 million.
Yesterday, Page Six reported that Sotheby’s was offering the draft, which is pencilled on four sheets of Roger Smith Hotel letterhead stationery, predicting that the item would fetch anything between one to two million dollars.
Predictions were on the money as the manuscript broke the world record for a sale of its kind, selling for over $2.045 million.
In 2010, John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for ‘A Day in the Life’, taken from the Beatles’ album ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, sold for $1.2m.
The auctioneer described the seller as a ‘long-time fan’ from California who once met Dylan in a ‘non-rock context’ and bought the piece of musical gold directly from the man himself.
Dylan recorded the song, which would later become his most well known track, in 1965 aged just 25.
The famous chorus can be clearly read in Dylan’s handwriting at the bottom of the page one.
“How does it feel, To be on your own, No direction home, Like a complete unknown, Like a rolling stone…”
Listen to the track below in all its glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F0ytNzHDj8
Video via YouTube/SomDRock
