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Credit: Far Out \/ Daniel Kramer \/ Albert Grossman Management \/ Album Cover<\/p>\n
October 24th, 2026 \u00b7 12:00am BST <\/p>\n
\u201cJudas\u201d. That\u2019s the famous word that was once hurled at Bob Dylan<\/a> as he had the audacity to play an electric guitar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dylan had made a name for himself as one of the most popular folk singers in the world, and his style of performance very much fit the classic mould of a folk singer. He would sing quite serene and soft vocals while playing an acoustic guitar, and his fanbase was pretty happy with it. When he started playing the electric guitar, it was an incredibly controversial moment, so what possessed him to make such a move?\u00a0<\/p>\n The short answer is The Byrds. Dylan\u2019s songs have been covered far and wide, but only a few renditions have led to him changing his songs entirely<\/a>. That\u2019s what happened with The Byrds cover of \u2018Mr Tambourine Man\u2019, as the band took Dylan\u2019s classic and twisted it into a folk rock classic. The man himself loved the sound of the song so much that he decided he would try to replicate it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBob Dylan had written it in a very countrified groove, a straight 2\/4 time signature, and Roger takes the song home and works with it, puts it in 4\/4 time, so you could dance to it,\u201d said bassist Chris Hillman, \u201cBob heard us do it and said, \u2018Man, you could dance to this!\u2019 It really knocked him over and he loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n The brains behind the cover was Roger McGuinn, as he was responsible for that switched-up time signature and gave the track the much-needed spin that it was desperate for. His bandmates weren\u2019t sure it was going to work, but once they heard what he had been cooking up, they knew that McGuinn had tapped into something special. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKudos to Roger McGuinn for taking on \u2018Tambourine Man\u2019,\u201d said Hillman, \u201cWhich didn\u2019t knock us out when we first heard it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s interesting is that not only was it McGuinn who came up with the idea for the cover, but he was also the only actual member of The Byrds who played on the record. That\u2019s right, you had Terry Melcher, who was producing the record, and he wasn\u2019t sure that the band were cut out to pull off the perfect version of the track. As such, Melcher decided to get some help in the studio.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter<\/p>\n