Mr. Tambourine Man

For The Byrds' album of the same name, see Mr. Tambourine Man (album).

"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song, written and performed by Bob Dylan, and featured on his 1965 album, Bringing It All Back Home, produced by Tom Wilson. It was a number one single on the Billboard charts, by The Byrds, recorded on January 20, 1965 before the release of Dylan's own version. Later it was included on their debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man (1965). The album brought the folk-rock sound into mainstream American consciousness.

Structurally, the song is notable for the fact that it begins with an iteration of the chorus, rather than following the conventional pop song structure, which typically employs a brief instrumental introduction that leads into the first verse.

There are many theories about the meaning of the song. One interpretation is that the song allusively recounts Dylan's early experiences with LSD, and this is supported by the prominent use of the word "trip" in the first line of the second verse.

The 1995 film Dangerous Minds takes the approach that the song is about a drug deal. Dylan himself claims that the song was inspired by the image of a session musician shaking a tambourine and partly by a trip he took from Los Angeles to New York. He mailed packages of marijuana to post offices along the route so that he would not be caught with the drug.

On the master recording Dylan is playing an acoustic guitar in dropped D tuning, capoed at the third fret. An electric guitar plays a counter melody to back up Dylan's vocals.

On the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, The Byrds' version of this song placed at #79 and Bob Dylan's version placed at #106. It was one of three songs to place twice, with "Walk This Way" by both Aerosmith and Run-DMC, and "Blue Suede Shoes" by both Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley.

Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson requested the song be played at his funeral while his ashes were shot out of a cannon and also dedicated Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Dylan because of the song.

The song was also covered by Judy Collins in 1965 on Judy Collins' Fifth Album.

Bruce Langhorne, the great Greenwich Village folk guitarist, may well have been a great inspiration for the writing of this song by way of the giant Turkish tambourine-like frame drum he was often known to play in the time leading up to the song's composition;[1][2] he also recorded using the instrument with Richard and Mimi Fariña. The electric guitar accompaniment on the album version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" is among Bruce's numerous credits on Bob Dylan's recordings of the time.

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• Lyrics and sound clips