A torn page bearing Bob Dylan's draft lyrics for the 1967 song I'm Not There has been discovered tucked inside a first-edition paperback of Allen Ginsberg's Ankor Wat. The page is expected to fetch between £20,000 and £40,000 when it goes under the hammer in April.
The lyrics were found in a book once owned by Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan's first manager, Albert Grossman, and a close friend of the singer. Grossman appears with Dylan on the cover of his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The book was gifted to her by Ginsberg himself in 1969 and was part of her estate sold after her death in 2021.
Omega Auctions, which is handling the sale, described the find as "extremely rare" and a working lyric draft of one of Dylan's greatest pieces of songwriting. The page likely remained undetected for years, falling out when the seller was leafing through the book.
Dylan wrote and recorded I'm Not There during the summer of 1967 in Woodstock, New York, with his backing group The Band. The song was not officially released until 2007, when it appeared on the soundtrack for Todd Haynes' Dylan film of the same name.
Other music memorabilia set to be sold in April includes Michael Jackson's handwritten lyrics for Black or White and an archive relating to Radiohead's album OK Computer.
