Bob Dylan's early drafts of 'Mr. Tambourine Man' lyrics fetch $500K at auction

Bob Dylan admirers from around the world over the weekend forked over $1.5 million to own rare memorabilia that was once in the rock legend's possession.

An auction in Nashville boasted the sale of an early draft of the 1965 song "Mr. Tambourine Man," which fetched $508,000 Julien's Actions announced in a Saturday press release.

The yellowed paper featured "authorial typescript lyrics comprising three progressive drafts of 'Mr. Tambourine Man' with annotations in Bob Dylan's hand on the third draft of the song," per the auction house. Additionally, the third draft featured lyrics close to the final recorded version of the song.

"Celebrating Bob Dylan: The Aronowitz Archive, T Bone Burnett, & More," which took place Saturday, comprised 60 items owned by the 83-year-old musician, with most of them coming from the archive of the late rock journalist Al Aronowitz, who authored the New York Post's Pop Scene column and died in 2005.

The collection sold through the auction included an original oil-on-canvas painting Dylan made in 1968, which auctioned for $260,000; a 1983 Fender Telecaster made for and once owned by Dylan that sold for $222,250; and signed handwritten lyrics for "Blowin' In The Wind," which fetched $44,450.

More: Fact-check: What the new Bob Dylan movie gets right — and wrong

Aronowitz's son, Myles Aronowitz, had brought the artifacts to Julien's and said he was "thrilled with the auction," per the press release.

"These items were evidence of the unique and intimate place my father had in musical and cultural history with his good friend Bob Dylan, and all the other iconic artists of his day," he said.

The Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," starring Timothée Chalamet as a young Dylan, came out in December and boasted the help of the elusive living legend himself

"Bob read the script and we had four or five meetings and he made himself available whenever I needed," James Mangold told USA TODAY.

"I have to say he was utterly lovely and charming and open," he added. "Maybe it was because I wasn’t writing a book or article, but was just a fellow artist, not that I'm in that league. But he could see I wasn’t picking sides with an agenda to push, and that I was representing all the characters with respect. Since he loved them all."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bob Dylan auction earns $1.5 million with original lyrics, painting