On this day (June 26) in 1965, The Byrds topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their debut single, “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It would go on to not only propel the band to fame but also signal the beginning of the folk-rock boom of the mid-1960s.
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Bob Dylan wrote “Mr. Tambourine Man” and recorded it for his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The album dropped on March 22 of that year. The Byrds released it as a single less than a month later, on April 12, 1965. The track introduced the world to a blend of jangly folk guitar, a rock and roll rhythm section, and poetic lyrics that would come to be known as folk rock.
[RELATED: 60 Years Ago This Month, The Byrds Invented Folk Rock With the ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ Album]
Admittedly, the Byrds weren’t the first band to blend rock with folk music. The folk revival that took place earlier in the decade saw The Animals tapping into the sound. Their now-classic rendition of “The House of the Rising Sun” is an example. Additionally, some point to select tracks from the Beatles and a handful of other artists as examples of folk rock released before “Mr. Tambourine Man.” However, none of them found the same kind of success.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” gave the Byrds an international hit. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 and went to No. 1 in Ireland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The single was also a top 10 hit in multiple countries.
The Surprisingly Sober Meaning Behind the Byrds’ Debut Hit
Whether it’s the Byrds’ shortened rocking version or Bob Dylan’s original, “Mr. Tambourine Man” is open to interpretation. That, and the era in which it was released, have led many people to believe the song is about drugs. Some believe the titular tambourine player is actually a dealer. However, that’s not the case.
“Drugs never played a part in that song,” Dylan wrote in the liner notes of Biograph. “Drugs were never that big of a thing with me. I could take ‘em or leave ‘em, never hung me up,” he added.
Instead, the song was inspired by guitarist Bruce Langhorne. “Bruce was playing with me on a bunch of early records. On one session, Tom Wilson had asked him to play tambourine,” Dylan recalled. “And he had this gigantic tambourine. It was, like, really big. It was as big as a wagon wheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing just stuck in my head.”
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