Watch Bob Dylan Play “Mr. Tambourine Man” in Color at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival

It was at the 1965 New­port Folk Fes­ti­val that Bob Dylan famous­ly “went elec­tric,” alien­at­ing cer­tain adher­ents to the folk scene through which he’d come up, but also set­ting a prece­dent for the kind of quick-change musi­cal adap­ta­tion that he’s kept up into his eight­ies. At the 1964 New­port Folk Fes­ti­val, how­ev­er, all that lay in the future. Yet even then, the young Dylan was­n’t shy of mak­ing con­tro­ver­sial choic­es. Take, for exam­ple, the choice to play “Mr. Tam­bourine Man,” a song that — how­ev­er redo­lent of the mid-nine­teen-six­ties when heard today — would hard­ly have been top­i­cal enough to meet the expec­ta­tions of folk fans who regard­ed the music’s top­i­cal­i­ty as its main strength.

At the top of the post, you can watch col­orized footage of Dylan’s per­for­mance of “Mr. Tam­bourine Man” at the 1964 New­port Folk Fes­ti­val; the orig­i­nal black-and-white clip appears below. Con­sid­er the res­o­nances it could have set off in the minds of his youth­ful, clean-cut audi­ence: Rim­baud? Felli­ni? Lord Buck­ley? Mar­di Gras? Con­fes­sions of an Eng­lish Opi­um-Eater? Dyla­nol­o­gists have sug­gest­ed all these sources of inspi­ra­tion and oth­ers. It is pos­si­ble, of course, that — as Dylan him­self once said — the lyrics’ cen­tral image is that of gui­tarist Bruce Lang­horne, who played on the song as record­ed for Bring­ing It All Back Home, a musi­cian then known for his own­er­ship of a gigan­tic tam­bourine.

Despite its lack of ref­er­ences to the issues of the day, “Mr. Tam­bourine Man” reflects its his­tor­i­cal moment with a clar­i­ty that few songs ever have. (Some would say that’s even truer of The Byrds’ cov­er ver­sion, a radio hit that came out just a month after Dylan’s orig­i­nal.) Dylan him­self must have sensed that it marked not just the peak of an era, but also that of his own com­po­si­tion­al and per­for­ma­tive efforts in this par­tic­u­lar musi­cal style. Though he did attempt to write a fol­low-up to the song, its fail­ure to cohere showed him the way for­ward. Dylan still plays it in con­cert today, and to enthu­si­as­tic recep­tion from his audi­ences, but in such a way as to rein­vent it each time — know­ing that he both is and is not the same man who took the stage at New­port those six­ty years ago, and that “Mr. Tam­bourine Man” both is and is not the same song.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Bob Dylan’s His­toric New­port Folk Fes­ti­val Per­for­mances, 1963–1965

Watch Bob Dylan Make His Debut at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val in Col­orized 1963 Footage

How Bob Dylan Kept Rein­vent­ing His Song­writ­ing Process, Breath­ing New Life Into His Music

How Bob Dylan Cre­at­ed a Musi­cal & Lit­er­ary World All His Own: Four Video Essays

Com­pare the “It Ain’t Me Babe” Scene from A Com­plete Unknown to the Real Bob Dylan & Joan Baez Per­for­mance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

“Mr. Tam­bourine Man” & Oth­er Bob Dylan Clas­sics, Sung Beau­ti­ful­ly by Kids

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.