Mr. Tambourine Man

Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the original version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," but it was made famous by The Byrds, who took it to #1 in both the US and UK. The song hadn't been released when The Byrds learned it from a demo Dylan gave to their manager, Jim Dickson. The two versions were released just a few weeks apart: Dylan's on March 22, 1965, on his Bringing It All Back Home album, The Byrds' on April 12, 1965 as their first single. Dylan's version is just his vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica, and electric guitar countermelodies from session man Bruce Langhorne, who actually inspired the song (more on that later). The Byrds brought in the Wrecking Crew (various session musicians in Southern California) to add bass, piano and layers of guitar on top of Roger McGuinn's 12-string guitar and harmony vocals by Gene Clark and David Crosby. Their version set the standard for folk rock and even convinced Dylan to go electric.

Who or what is "Mr. Tambourine Man" about? On the surface, this tambourine man is an itinerant musician whose music has captured Dylan under his spell - he's ready to follow him anywhere. The song is widely considered to be drug-influenced, with lines like "Take me for a trip upon your magic swirling ship" and "take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind" indicating a pot or acid experience. Dylan is famously obtuse about explaining his songs, but in his 1985 Biograph compilation album, he broke the news that "Mr. Tambourine Man" is not about drugs, and was inspired by a folk musician named Bruce Langhorne. Langhorne played on some of Dylan's early recording sessions, and one day, Dylan's producer, Tom Wilson, asked him to play tambourine. Dylan was struck by the sheer size of the instrument, describing it as "this gigantic tambourine... big as a wagon wheel." The vision of Langhorne playing it stuck in his mind and led him to the song.

The song may not be about drugs, but they were an influence during its creation. Dylan started writing the song on a cross-country road trip with friends that took them through New Orleans for Mardi Gras in February 1964. They smoked lots of pot on this journey and even mailed marijuana to post offices along the way to keep up their stash.