From Robyn on Patreon in 2025
Last month saw the 60th anniversary of the release of Bringing It All Back Home. Though the album came out in March 1965, it took me almost two years to get hold of a copy. When I did, at the golden dawn of 1967, it was the first track on Side Two that pulled me into its hypnotic web: Dylan presented "Mr Tambourine Man" with just his acoustic, his harmonica, and an eerie bell-like electric guitar in the background. His voice was an incantation, a plea for transcendence from the wheel of human grind. As a 13-year-old, I was duly hypnotised and would spin around in the Hampshire fields at twilight, chanting the words until I was dizzy and fell over.

I'd heard the song already, courtesy of the Byrds. Their take on it was more airborne, soaring aloft on David Crosby's harmonies and Jim McGuinn's 12-string guitar. Between them they made "Mr Tambourine Man" shimmer like a mirage. While their ethereal version gave me goosebumps, Dylan's original went down deep. Like all his best work, it felt like a lament that touched the roots of the soul, with a courtesy card that read: "Welcome to life - it sucks, but it's beautiful."

Six decades later, humanity grinds on, still here somehow, with fear in one eye and escape in the other. Transcendence is more in demand than ever. I woke up last Wednesday and wondered: what would it be like to merge Dylan and the Byrds in terms of approach to "Mr Tambourine Man"?

McGuinn had put the song in 4/4 time, pruned three of the four verses, and added his spine-tingling 12-string part. Crosby coated the chorus with his harmony. I've restored one of Dylan's verses, shed the harmony on the first chorus, but kept the Byrds' other modifications. Of course, these American legends were in their early 20s when they recorded their versions; I am now way up at the other end of life.

I hope I've done it some justice - the feelings expressed in the words and tune of this song haven't gone away.