Bob Dylan's handwritten lyrics to 'Like a Rolling Stone' sell for $2 million
On Tuesday, four pieces of letterhead stationery from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, D.C., sold for $2 million at a Sotheby's auction.
They weren't just any sheets of paper, though. Several decades ago, a young Bob Dylan took the stationery and wrote out the final lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone," a song he recorded in 1964 at the age of 24. It is the only known surviving draft of the final lyrics, The Associated Press reports, and just set the world record for a pop music manuscript.
An unidentified Dylan fan from California bought the lyrics. The previous record holder was John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for "A Day in the Life," which sold in 2010 for $1.2 million.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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