Bob Dylan wrote the song Mr. Tambourine man in the first half of 1964. He recorded it the year after for the album Bringing it all home. The same year Byrds recorded their version of the song. Byrds version made it to the top of the Billboard list. It is the only Dylan song that has done so.
In the original version Dylan played the song with a capo on the third fret. Therefore it sounds a small triad higher than the chords indicate. Of course the capo should be placed were fits the singer. Placing the capo on the third fret makes the song in F which is a bit to high for me. Therefore I place the capo on the second fret. Dylan lowered the deep E string to D. That makes it possible to vary the base in the accompaniment. Especially when playing the D and A chords. It also sounds nice to play either Dsus2 or Dsus4 when the D chord is played.
I have heard that the text is about drugs but Dylan himself has corrected that. He simply got the idea for the text when he saw Bruce Langhorn in the studio with a giant turkish drum. The text is brilliant and has so much more depth than if it was about drugs. Bruce Langhorn is a guitar player which played a second guitar in the song as can be heard in the recording from 1965.
One can endlessly speculate what the text is about and never be spot on what Dylan was thinking. The text was written after the Mardi Gras festival in New York. It starts with the chorus were the narrator speaks to the man with the tambourine and asks him to play a song for his enjoyment. Immediately in the chorus you get the feeling that the text is about loneliness.
The first verse also deals with loneliness and you sense emptiness and fatigue. It´s like those feelings woke when the streets got quiet. It was verse two which made people think the text is about drugs but I think it only refers to longing to escape from everything. This is a longing people fell when life is to stressful and they wished life was more easy. When the burdens of life get heavy it is nice to have someone you can follow blindly to a better place. The tambourine man represents that someone. You can also think of the tambourine man as a substitute for music and the music is the antidote for worries and fatigue.
In the third verse the narrator talks to the tambourine man and tells him not to worry though he, the narrator, is dancing and singing. It only means that he is enjoying the music. The fourth verse Dylan is referring to the burdens of life and the importance of enjoying the good times. Sometimes you need to forget your worries and just allow your self to be happy.
This is how I like to understand the text Tambourine man. This understanding is the right one for me but it might not be the right one for you. What was Dylan´s understanding I don´t know.
If you want the music in pdf form you can visit the original text which is in Icelandic. Just click on the image of the chords. It´s here: http://vefurkela.com/index.php/tonlist/60-tambourine-man There you can also see how this version is played.
