The artifacts of mid-century American songwriting often surface in the most unexpected of places. A typewritten draft of Bob Dylan’s "I’m Not There," a track long considered one of the most enigmatic entries in his canon, is set to go under the hammer at Omega Auctions on April 21. The document, estimated to fetch up to £40,000 (roughly $54,000 USD), represents a tangible link to the "Basement Tapes" era—a period defined by its loose, improvisational brilliance.
The provenance of the piece reads like a map of the 1960s folk-rock intelligentsia. The lyrics were discovered tucked inside a first edition of Allen Ginsberg’s *Ankor Wat*, a book inscribed to Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and the woman who famously graced the cover of *Bringing It All Back Home*. The typescript remained hidden within the pages for decades, surviving as a quiet passenger in a personal library until its recent rediscovery.
Physically, the draft is a testament to the labor of composition. Spanning a single sheet of lined paper with a jagged lower edge, the text is peppered with Dylan’s own handwritten amendments. These corrections offer a rare view of a songwriter refining a track that would remain officially unreleased for nearly forty years, existing only as a bootleg ghost until the 21st century. In an age of digital permanence, such paper trails serve as a reminder of the fragility and physical grit of 20th-century art.
With reporting from Hypebeast.
Source · Hypebeast
