Bob Dylan: Mr. Tambourine Man Meaning

Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has...

1. lessonnumbertwo

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   May 21st 2010 !⃝

   In my opinion the author wants to find (or try) something new, something different, special. And for that he needs the help of someone (a reference) since nothing fascinates him no more, the inspiration is now gone, he is tired and he does not know what to do. He just knows that right now, he has no directions and he is, i would say, a little lost. He needs a lead that will take him to a "new world". The song represents something he consider to be helpfull since it is inspiring and it will make him reach "something else", "another side", the "new world".
2. m320753

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   Apr 12th 2010 !⃝

   as i was reading some of the comments one which was mine there was one thing i and a lot of people seem to fail commenting on that is the way his lyrics are some of the all time best rhyming songs around here in tamburine every line ends with the same type of rhyme be it wave save nave or what ever visions of johanna hypntizes me . funny how i listened to his songs both on record, tape or cd. when i read the words here it did indeed put me back in time to when i bought lyrics 1963-1975or something like that
3. anonymous

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   Apr 6th 2010 !⃝

   This song sounds more like asking for sleep than anything else. He's tired (My weariness amazes me) but he can't get to sleep (I'm not sleepy). He ponders what dreams he wants (take me on a trip...)(take me disappearing...)(To dance beneath the diamond sky...) to go to strange and wonderful places that can't exist in reality. To feel free from his problems for a time (let me forget about today). It's calm, soothing song asking for peace and mystery. I can see the drug idea, but I prefer to think it's a lullaby.
4. anonymous

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   Apr 6th 2010 !⃝

   Before he died, Babatunde Olatunji told me this story. It seems that a young Bob Dylan followed his DjunDjun player deep into Harlem to hear African Rhythms being taught by Olatunji. His player was a white man who had doggedly come to the center to learn despite the fact that the other players said that he was white and had no rhythm. They called him Tambourine Man because that is the instrument musicians give to the non player.
   
   Tambourine Man became so proficient that he gained all of their respect and it was on a night in Harlem that this song was born. They now called him 'Mr' Tambourine Man... 'reels' refer to the Irish rhythms that made their way into the African diaspora that gave Tambourine Man a birthright to the complex poly rhythms that he could play with his 'free hand' while his other hand played a completely different rhythm. often his feet would stomp the tambourine in yet another rhythm making him a one man band.
   
   Baba played with Coltrane and Bird. He went on to be Carlos Santana's Godfather and is the 'Ba' they sing to in Jingo Ba at Woodstock. He is the inspiration and godfather to Mickey Hart and played with everyone. He is the 'Soul Makossa' that even Jackson sampled and Mr. Tambourine Man played with him through it all and played with him till Baba passed a few years ago.
   
   It is not a song about drugs or despair. Quite the opposite...

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
5. anonymous

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   Apr 6th 2010 !⃝

   Before he died, Babatunde Olatunji told me this story. It seems that a young Bob Dylan followed his DjunDjun player deep into Harlem to hear African Rhythms being taught by Olatunji. His player was a white man who had doggedly come to the center to learn despite the fact that the other players said that he was white and had no rhythm. They called him Tambourine Man because that is the instrument musicians give to the non player.
   
   Tambourine Man became so proficient that he gained all of their respect and it was on a night in Harlem that this song was born. They now called him 'Mr' Tambourine Man... 'reels' refer to the Irish rhythms that made their way into the African diaspora that gave Tambourine Man a birthright to the complex poly rhythms that he could play with his 'free hand' while his other hand played a completely different rhythm. often his feet would stomp the tambourine in yet another rhythm making him a one man band.
   
   Baba played with Coltrane and Bird. He went on to be Carlos Santana's Godfather and is the 'Ba' they sing to in Jingo Ba at Woodstock. He is the inspiration and godfather to Mickey Hart and played with everyone. He is the 'Soul Makossa' that even Jackson sampled and Mr. Tambourine Man played with him through it all and played with him till Baba passed a few years ago.
   
   It is not a song about drugs or despair. Quite the opposite...
6. anonymous

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   Feb 26th 2010 !⃝

   clearly the people who think its about drugs don't know a think about bob dylan. his songs are symbolic and have hidden meanings meant to enrich and make one think. I do not fully understand the song myself but it is not about drugs. Look at blowin' in the wind or Emmett Till. His songs are about a cause and mean so much more than getting high. A few references here and there cannot be denied but they are not the only thing in the songs.
7. cuznricky

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   Dec 25th 2009 !⃝

   Amazing that there is any controversy as to this songs meaning. I guess the folks who wrote before me have never had drug issues in their life. This song clearly is about escaping life through drugs ... I could break down every verse, but if you have common sense and read each line...it could have no other meaning. Us addicts used to "forget about today until tomorrow".

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. margo2

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   Nov 28th 2009 !⃝

   I think it's a prayer. Maybe not to a christen God, but to one that sets life's tempo. a Tambourine Man.
   It's clearly comming from a low moment, "My weariness amazes
   me....my hands can't feel to grip my toes to numb to step"
   
   He is low enough to be making deals, "cast your dancing spell my way I PROMISE to go under it.
   We all make those deals, to our conception of a god at one time or another.
   The last verse is beautiful. "take me... out to the windy beach, far past the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.."
   He could be praying to his drug of choice, or his creator,
   The obvious drug references may just be habit of expression.
   Who or what he is speeking to is bigger than him and he is trusting him to take him away.
9. LuannD

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   May 14th 2009 !⃝

   ["And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
   To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
   I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
   Seein' that he's chasing."]
   I grew up with this song being done by everyone and anyone. Dylan would often times refer to himself using different metaphors - in this case, Mr. Tambourine Man and the ragged clown. In Like a Rolling Stone, he was the "mystery tramp". Even Don McLean's American Pie references Dylan in the line "the jester sang for the king and queen, In a coat he borrowed from james dean And a voice that came from you and me." Dylan was labelled the "angry young man" of his generation and the voice of a generation (of which he fought against both titles). But, we got used to his phraseology, his strings of alliterations, the transposing of words, and listened to it as it was recorded.
10. anonymous

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    May 5th 2009 !⃝

    As a composer, a rebel, a musician, an idealist and a young lover I find something deeper than drugs in this song. I resent the opinion that even drug users are incapable of finding pleasure in anything but their addictions. Clearly Bob Dylan loved music--he did not devote his life to the addictions that destroyed his voice and clouded his mind. He found solace and pleasure in them, but his love seemed to be music, and the life it fills the world with. To me, there are several levels to Mr. Tambourine man.
    
    I like the idea that it is a song about writing a song, about the inspiration of music and the journey it represents. I had not thought of that interpretation, but it hangs with me now and rings true in my mind. I have always felt a sense of both wonder and sadness pouring from the song, of awed joy, and wistful sighing. Dylan speaks of the magic of life, and begs for more--both celebrating the magic when you feel it around you and crying out for it when you feel broken and asleep to the universe. To me, the song twists the magic of life with the magic of dreams, it is a creative journey Dylan is sharing with listeners from all walks, of all affinities, of moods somber and bright. It molds itself to the context in which it plays, but one message remains clear throughout: that life itself is a joy worth leaping up for, worth dancing beneath the stars without meter beyond the rhythm of the pounding surf, arms floating through the air out of euphoric bliss. Mr. Tambourine Man, perhaps a muse or perhaps a street musician or panhandler, carries on his playing in the face of all lifes tribulations and in celebration of all its offerings: those had and lost, those yet to come, and those that remain ever at the side of the living.
11. anonymous

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    Apr 23rd 2009 !⃝

    All of you... have never experienced euphoria just because of the music you're listening to? The music itself can't take you to heaven? That's why you think Bob wrote a song about drugs... I cannot be so self-assured to say what BOB wanted to say, but still I think that people who can't feel the music shouldn't come up with explanations of a musician's mind!
12. anonymous

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    Mar 3rd 2009 !⃝

    This is my favorite song. I've heard the drug references and all that, and maybe it's true. Everything in the sixties just had to be about drugs, I guess. But I always thought it was about the time between waking and sleeping. When your about to wake up, but have nowhere to be and nothing to do, and just want to stay in that restful state of mind. Mr. Tambourine Man is the thing that keeps you in that state, somewhere between dream and reality.
13. anonymous

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    Nov 11th 2008 !⃝

    I really think this song is about depression.
    the one who is telling the story is depressed, and tired of the world and himself. he is kinda calling for help from the tambourine man- who is supposed to be a happy, full of life figure, that will help giving him insparation and strength.
14. willard

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    Nov 10th 2008 !⃝

    It doesn't matter if it exactly about drug, pot, uppers downers, or the sandman.
    It's more about everything and Dylan's life at that time in particular.
    It's about living life and creating and getting input and feedback till you start to float, become drifting or get transcending into a more higher level of being. Wandering through and astral field or plain.
    
    Were time is an ocean or hidden like a foggy ruin. Were every feeling and experience can be seen in it's own perspective. As it is what it is. It's there were reality sublimates into incremental parts which can be seen, described, halted, reversed and can be touched after which the disappear into a new something, momentum or experience. Perpetual happening until your own weariness amazes you.....
    Step out the train called conformity, leave the GODS in the heavens en the cellars.
    Be human walk this earth and experience what is happening to you and others.
    Open your own eyes and do see with other people eyes or ideas and stay who you are.
    Don't judge anything you cannot judge as a person, try to relive the thought that just slipped away in the great void.
    Aren't we all living blind people ?
    It's all about mental matureness. Being experienced be whatever....enlightend.
    The poet is far beyond us all, after 40 years this universal forever beautiful piece of art is still speaking for itself like a oracle propelled through the universe by it's vehicle, music.
    Further the song when you listen very carefully last about two decades. When I listen now, I hear two decades of my own life my youth, and when I tough the song the energy flow through my entire body ....and when I play it I communicate with everybody who listens. When I play it I hear the enternal energy of life and good spirites surrounding the living and I hear myself as another person who is somewhere beside me ......
    It's about music, energy, youth, life, experience, opportunities, dullness, breaking with conformity it's about pealing yourself like an union or an egg for years without sleep.
    It's about discovered self awareness en public. Something like "inspice et cautus eris" slower and in front of an audience.
    
    It's not a lullaby and it's not only about drugs.
    Those who say so only want to degenerate one one the biggest minds of OUR time !
15. m320753

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    Nov 3rd 2008 !⃝

    i don't know the judges of the bob dylan quiz at the top of the interprations but they are 1,000% wrong about question #2. i know it's a scam but man make up a really hard question, like who was in his 3rd grade class? (jimmy calhoun) or an even harder one, like what did his mom put in bob's lunch bag on his birthday every year from 1st grade on?( how many would have known this one, a twinkie with chocolate frosting on it.well anyway you get my drift?

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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