Mr. Tambourine Man
by The Byrds
- 123
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 46
- Danceability
- 51
- Acousticness
Bob Dylan began writing "Mr. Tambourine Man" in February 1964, after going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans on a cross-country road trip with friends. He finished it between the middle of March and late April after returning to New York. He first played it publicly at London's Royal Festival Hall on May 17. In June 1964 he recorded it with Ramblin' Jack Elliott singing harmony, but Elliott was slightly off key and the take went unused. Dylan tried again on January 15, 1965, during the last Bringing It All Back Home session, and the song took six attempts. Early takes included a drummer playing a tambourine-heavy rhythm. Dylan found it distracting and went on with just Bruce Langhorne's electric lead. The album came out in March 1965.
The Byrds recorded it in a different form. Their April 1965 version was their first single on Columbia Records. They used only the second of Dylan's four verses. It went to number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and it was the title track of their debut album.
Dylan said he was partly influenced to record with electric instruments after hearing the Byrds rework the song at a rehearsal at World Pacific Studios in late 1964.
Mr. Tambourine Man runs at 123 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.95 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 488 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.