Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Bob Dylan ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ Lyrics Fetch $2M at Auction

Bob Dylan’s handwritten manuscript for “Like a Rolling Stone” sold for just over $2 million on Tuesday at Sotheby’s rock and roll auction, which also included memorabilia from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley.

The price for the annotated lyrics for “Like a Rolling Stone,” considered one of the most influential songs in postwar music, makes it the most expensive rock music sold at auction.

It shattered the previous record for rock music lyrics set in 2010 when John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for “A Day in the Life,” the final track from the 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” sold for $1.2 million, according to Sotheby’s.

The manuscript for Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” fetched $485,000 at Sotheby’s first dedicated music history sale in more than a decade.

The 150 lots in the auction, which ranged in price from an estimated $200-$300 up $2 million for the Dylan manuscript, came from collectors and people who worked in the music industry.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.