(Credits: Bent Rej)

Randy Newman might’ve hailed Bob Dylan as a master of the craft, but he also isn’t the sort of sentimentalist to hero-worship the folk icon. “Dylan knows he doesn’t write like he did on those first two records,“ Newman once grovelled, casting shade on the original vagabond’s latter works. Although that critique might seem cutting, given the irrefutable quality of records like Love and Theft and Rough and Rowdy Ways, you’d likely find Dylan in agreement.

By no means does that mean that what followed was anything short of excellent—bar a few notable blemishes—but something monumental and altogether mysterious was happening to Dylan in the 1960s. He was capturing a sound and essence never known before and never matched since. In a prolific blur of profound productivity, he was literally losing masterpieces down the back of his piano and not even noticing.

To tap into this perennial state of creative flow, “you have to get power and dominion over the spirits”, he says in his memoir—he had that once and “once was enough“. So, what exactly was it that he was freely channelling? “It was the sound of the streets,“ he told Playboy. “It still is,“ he said when reflecting on the “mercury“ street sound he achieved, which has proved elusive ever since. “I symbolically hear that sound wherever I am.“

Reflecting further on the mysterious zest in his creative pomp, he added: “That ethereal twilight light, you know. It’s the sound of the street with the sunrays, the sun shining down at a particular time, on a particular type of building. A particular type of people walking on a particular type of street. It’s an outdoor sound that drifts even into open windows that you can hear. The sound of bells and distant railroad trains and arguments in apartments and the clinking of silverware and knives and forks and beating with leather straps. It’s all-it’s all there.“

These songs, he says, were written “at the crack of dawn. Music filters out to me in the crack of dawn“. No song typifies that jingle jangle morning explosion of creativity quite like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’—the ultimate song of the streets. Dylan is found effusive in a cascading swirl of joie de vivre. It’s a track drunk on life and culture in the city, a place where the euphoria of spit and sawdust communion and booze-embellished bloodstreams can paint the nighttime bright until the morning finally casts its weariness upon the final happy stragglers.

In that regard, he happens upon the essence of the 1960s, the final throes of culture on the whim before it was resigned to tech that rendered it something more commonly enjoyed from home than among the sweaty masses. “Back then, there was space, space-well, there wasn’t any pressure. There was all the time in the world to get it done. There wasn’t any pressure, because nobody knew about it,“ he waxed lyrical to Playboy, recalling the spirit that sheens ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ with an affirming hue.

“Music people were like a bunch of cotton pickers. They see you on the side of the road picking cotton, but nobody stops to give a shit. I mean, it wasn’t that important,“ he continued. “So Washington Square was a place where people you knew or met congregated every Sunday and it was like a world of music. You know the way New York is; I mean, there could be 20 different things happening in the same kitchen or in the same park; there could be 200 bands in one park in New York; there could be 15 jug bands, five bluegrass bands and an old crummy string band, 20 Irish confederate groups, a Southern mountain band, folk singers of all kinds and colors, singing John Henry work songs.“

He says: “There was bodies piled sky-high doing whatever they felt like doing. Bongo drums, conga drums, saxophone players. xylophone players, drummers of all nations and nationalities. Poets who would rant and rave from the statues. You know, those things don’t happen anymore. But then that was what was happening. It was all street.“ Then suddenly, it became ‘enjoy from the comfort of your own home’. The times changed, but the music lived on, ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ still proving the untired relevance of the message that Dylan was channelling. In this regard, it may well be his defining anthem.

In fact, there are plenty of icons who think it was the defining anthem of the entire era, as you can see below.

Praise for ‘Mr Tambourine Man’:

Paul McCartney

“I know it’s corny, but I heard him do ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ at the Albert Hall [May 9, 1965],“ he recently told Mojo, “And I was aching for him to do it and knowing Dylan I thought he might not do it. Just to be awkward, just to be perverse.“

“It was the infamous show where all the folkies thought he’d sold out. How crap is that?“ Thankfully, for the sake of the future of music, McCartney wasn’t one of the few shouting “Judas“and saw an ionised break from tradition as the start of a progressive future rather than an insult to the past. “It was fantastic. First half is folky, and then the second half was electric with The Band – it was the all-time concert.“

McCartney comically continued, “Then of course, somebody starts going, ‘He’s deserted the folk world!’ Yeah, no wonder, look at you mate. So he did it there, the first time I’d ever heard it live. A really good song, very much of the period. Totally nailed that year. I was lucky to be there.”

Brian Wilson

When selecting a list of his favourite songs, Brian Wilson saved the best until last when selecting ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me/I’m not sleepy, and there ain’t no place I’m going to…’ I love those lyrics, really love them,“ he said, “‘Poetic’ is the word.”

He also heaped praise on other pieces but crowned this classic as his favourite, adding: ”I was a big fan of his lyrics, of course. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was one of the best songs, you know? And ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and so many more. What a songwriter!”

Hunter S. Thompson

‘Mr Tambourine Man’ was more than a song to Hunter S. Thompson; it was a way of life. In a published letter to a friend, he heaps praise on his hero, proclaiming: “Dylan is a goddamn phenomenon, pure gold, and mean as a snake”. As for the song, well, as the dedication on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas states: “to Bob Dylan, for Mister Tambourine Man“. Beyond that honour, he even went on to liken his opus to the song itself.

In the backdrop of the horrors of the 1960s – the imminent dreaded Vietnam War draft – it is easy to see how the creative flow of the song could’ve taken hold on less of a personal level. As he documents in Fear and Loathing in America: “This, to me, is the Hippy National Anthem,” he writes about Dylan’s anthem. “To anyone who was part of that (post-beat) scene before the word ‘hippy’ became a national publicity landmark (in 1966 and 1967), ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ is both an epitaph and a swan song for the lifestyle and the instincts that led, eventually, to the hugely-advertised ‘hippy phenomenon‘.“

David Crosby

Unsurprisingly, another counterculture forebearer, David Crosby, would also opt for the track as his favourite Dylan anthem. “Appropriately enough,” he said himself, “my favourite is ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. Our manager knew Bob’s manager [when I was in the Byrds], and got an early tape of Bob singing this thing with another folk singer. It was really terrible, it was a really bad demo. They were out of tune and they were all screwed up. It was absolutely nonsense. But we heard these words: ‘To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.’ We were entranced,” he told Stereogum.

In the anthem, Dylan seems to cram the words into a beauteous melody without ever breaking stride. In fact, he ties in a tirade of musical triumph so effortlessly that it would seem he has lassoed the lyrics right out of the floating ether. As Crosby reflects: “Bob is a freaking wonderful poet. He’s a really skilful, inspired poet. His handling of words at that point in his life, is about as good as anybody is, period. That’s what really struck me. Musically, it’s a really simple old tune. It’s no problem. But the lyrics are stunning.”