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 has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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