Dylan papers, including unpublished lyrics, sell for $495K

BOSTON
(AP) — A long-lost trove of Bob Dylan documents including the
singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song
lyrics has sold at auction for a total of $495,000.

Boston-based
R.R. Auction said Friday the collection privately held by the late
American blues artist Tony Glover, a longtime Dylan friend and
confidante, was sold as individual lots Thursday, with a majority of the
key pieces going to a bidder whose identity was not made public.

The collection included transcripts of Glover’s 1971 interviews with Dylan
and letters the pair exchanged. The interviews reveal that Dylan had
anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name from Robert
Zimmerman, and that he wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for Barbra Streisand.

Dylan,
79, was close with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into
music in the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover’s widow, Cynthia
Nadler, put the documents up for auction online.

The reclusive
Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2016 after giving the world
“Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Times They Are
a-Changin’” and other anthems of the turbulent 1960s.

Included in
the auctioned items were lyrics Dylan penned after visiting folk legend
Woody Guthrie in May 1962. The lines, never made public until last
month, read:

“My eyes are cracked I think I been framed / I can’t
seem to remember the sound of my name / What did he teach you I heard
someone shout / Did he teach you to wheel & wind yourself out / Did
he teach you to reveal, respect, and repent the blues / No Jack he
taught me how to sleep in my shoes.”

In a 1971 conversation with Glover, Dylan discussed why he changed his name, saying: “A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants.”

This story has been updated to clarify the collection sold as individual lots for a total of $495,000, with the majority of key pieces going to an unidentified buyer.