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Lyrics to Unreleased Bob Dylan Song Up for Sale

Or this week in high-profile auctions

by
Adam Chandler
May 02, 2013

Sotheby’s may have just completed the most valuable Judaica auction ever earlier this week, but Christie’s is no slouch either.

According to Reuters, the lyrics to an unpublished early (read protest/Gutherie-era) Bob Dylan song are going up for sale. The song is called “Go Away You Bomb” and it’s about…well…bombs.

The lyrics of the new song include typically “beat” Dylan verse: “I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned an’ man-handled/An’ you might be miss-made an’ miss-owned an’ miss- handled an’ miss-used/An’ I hate you cause you could drop on me by accident an’ kill me.”



Christies said Dylan compositions at the time were among his most political and led to him being dubbed the “Spokesman of a Generation”.



“(This) is not only a beautiful example of Dylan’s songwriting, representing his political protest activities during that era, but is also a potent symbol of the anxieties of the American public in the early 1960s,” Nicolette Tomkinson, a director of Christie’s, said in a statement.

This sounds like a worthy purchase, but if I were to pay a large sum of money for something that Bob Dylan never actually released, I would go with “She’s Your Lover Now,” a song that was recorded 20 or so times in a day during the “Blonde on Blonde” sessions, but was abandoned before the song was completely finished.

The most complete version of the song (one of the last takes) was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991. Listen below and if you know someone at Christie’s, let’s make a deal.

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.