A page of Bob Dylan’s manuscript featuring lyrics for Blonde on Blonde, regarded by many as his greatest ever album, is being auctioned by Sotheby’s in London. Online bidding for the 1966 item opened today and runs until 12 May, with an estimated price of $13,000-16,000.
The page features lyrics to the song Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, a breakup song whose narrator can’t deal with the unpredictability and lack of commitment from their partner. The handwritten notes feature alternate lines such as: “You say disturb me & you don’t deserve / well honey sometimes you lie / you say you’re sorry … well I’ll go at last / let you pass.”
The notes have been handwritten over a typed page that features lyrics Dylan has never recorded. The song opens with the complaint: “Like a rich man’s son / like a poor fool in his prime / how come you treat me so cruel”, lines that ended up being adapted for Blonde on Blonde’s Temporary Like Achilles.
“I got five fevers and fourteen believers,” runs another section of the song, which grapples with Jesus, the devil and loss of innocence – this line eventually twisted for the song Obviously Five Believers.
“Been running with the devil tho he’s not my friend,” the verse continues. “You know I been running with my lover / you never miss yours until you realise you never had one.” A later verse reads: “It’s nothing to be ashamed about / when you lost your innocence / I look back at you and I see your smile / you’re not lost, gone / it’s just me and you, far from home / there we were far from calvery [sic]”. Calvary, the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, would crop up again in Dylan’s later Christian period, with a line in Saving Grace: “There’s only one road and it leads to Calvary”.
In 2014, Sotheby’s sold another page of lyrics for a considerably higher sum when $2m was paid for the manuscript of Like a Rolling Stone – still a record for song lyrics.
An online memorabilia seller, Moments in Time, is offering what is claimed to be the working manuscript for another of Dylan’s cornerstone songs, The Times They Are A-Changing, on sale for $2.2m.
After eight years spent releasing covers albums, Dylan has made a return to original songwriting this year. Murder Most Foul, his longest-ever song at 17 minutes, was acclaimed for its ambitious, drifting examination of JFK and American pop culture. It was followed by I Contain Multitudes, which made reference to Anne Frank, Indiana Jones, the Rolling Stones and William Blake.