Bob Dylan’s Handwritten ‘Times They Are a-Changin” Lyrics Sell for $422,500
Bob Dylan‘s handwritten lyrics to his 1963 song “The Times They Are a-Changin'” were sold at auction Friday for $422,500 to collector and hedge-fund trader Adam Sender.
Sotheby’s had estimated that the document, which includes Dylan’s lyrics for “North Country Blues” on the back, would go for between $200,000 and $300,000, but expected it to sell for more. Sotheby’s Senior Vice President Selby Kiffer told Rolling Stone early this month, “I’ll be perfectly frank — I think we could have pushed the estimate up a bit. No Dylan lyric has ever sold for this much, but no Dylan lyric of this stature has ever come up for auction.”
The lyric sheet comes from a cache of documents that Dylan historian Clinton Heylin refers to as “The MacKenzie-Krown Papers.” Eve and Mac MacKenzie and Kevin Krown were friends of the singer during his early years in New York, and possess what Heylin describes as “a couple of dozen early Dylan songs — some handwritten, some typed out with chords.” The lyrics to “The Times They Are-A Changin'” were sold by the MacKenzies’ son Peter about 10 years ago to a private collector.
Accept It: Dylan’s Lyrics Are Sold at Auction [New York Times]