Talk:Mr. Tambourine Man/Archive 1

Missing info
The article is missing info. When did he write the song? From the article, it appears that he wrote it for a 1965 album, but the article mentions that it was covered by 2 different groups, 1 in 1965 and another in 1964.

I shall ammend that. Indeed, there are two officially released Dylan performances of the song the recording of which predate the Bringing It All Back Home recording/release. (Jack Haddad 17:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC))

He wrote the song during his trip to the south, the very same trip that produced "Chimes of Freedom". However, he only wrote about half of it then. It has been said that the swirling imagery was conjured up by Dylan's memory of Mardis Gras, which he had just experienced.BootleggerWill (talk) 04:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

In the Newport version, he only plays about three minutes of a normally six-minute song. Why is this not mentioned?BootleggerWill (talk) 04:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, that's kind of interesting, but I'm not sure how relevant Dylan's shortened arrangement of the song at one concert performance is to an article about the song generally. Of course, I realise that Newport '65 wasn't "just another gig" but still, my feeling is that this is just too trivial for the article. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:42, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Urban legend: authorship
I remember reading somewhere that Dylan plagiarized this song and settled a lawsuit, paying someone. Obviously, that person's name is not listed at the author...   Anybody know anything about this? Or am I confusing it with another song?

I think you're refering to Blowin' in the Wind, there's an "Urban Legend" section with a similar story. --Thereen 03:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Another possible/probable urban legend asserted that tambourine was substituted for 'methadrine.'

==Performance in India Performance in India; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.1.167 (talk) 08:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Since Bob Dylan has plagiarized often and far and wide and throughout his career, the person who started this section could be confusing "Mr. Tambourine Man" with any number of works. Supposedly the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" derives from a real folk song called "No More Auction Block", but since "No More Auction Block" was in the public domain at the time Dylan claimed to have written "Blowin' in the Wind", one might suppose he couldn't have been sued for the appropriation. Yet he was successfully sued for "Masters of War". "Masters of War" appropriates the melody from a real folk song called "Nottamun Town". Jean Richie sued Dylan for stealing her arrangement of the melody. Other Dylan songs, like for example "Restless Farewell", "Fare Thee Well", "The Girl from the North Country", "Don't think Twice, It's All Right", and "The Chimes of Freedom", appropriate both lyrics and melody. Dylan began plagiarizing early: When Dylan was sixteen he published a poem called "Little Buddy" in The Herzl Herald, his Jewish summer camp paper. The poems replicates nearly verbatim a song lyric by Hank Snow also called "Little Buddy". His plagiarisms are not at all limited to songs. Most of Dylan's memoirs Chronicles, Volume One is taken from various uncredited sources. A few years back he exhibited a set of paintings that were exact duplications of art photographs made by uncredited others. Dylan continues to plagiarize to this day. He even plagiarized most of his Nobel acceptance speech! TheScotch (talk) 05:34, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Covers
I am surprised there is no mention of Odetta's 1965 cover from her album of all Dylan songs. Not only is it an amazing re-arrangement of the song, rivaling that of the Byrds, but it would seem to be one of the first covers of the song as well, and by a major contemporary of Dylan's to boot.

Newport Folk Festival
The article notes "At Dylan's final appearance at the Newport Folk Festival on July 29, 1965," however, that information is severely out of date. Dylan returned to the Newport Folk Festival in 2002. 24.161.69.195 (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ooh, OK...that's a very good point, well spotted. I'll see if I can find a reliable, third-party reference for his 2002 appearance and reword the sentence so that it's not quite so out of date. Thanks for the heads-up! --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Edits to Composition & Recording section
The three opening paragraphs had style problems that gave the section a piecemeal feel, not only because of how items had been dropped in but also because of sentence structures based on passive/inactive verbs. In trying to get the text to flow better, I also felt that several points were extraneous to the theme, namely the Al Aronowitz-Judy Collins claims and the list of friends for whom he had played the song early on. These asides lent nothing to the story and were relatively trivial compared to the couple things I replaced them with, the London concert and the specific difficulty encountered in recording the song (both from Heylin). Allreet (talk) 22:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Judy Collins claimed in her Glastonbury 2010 set that Dylan was writing it at Max Yasgur's farm at Woodstock and she heard him playing it one night. I don't have a verifiable source, though, as I don't think her gig was recorded or filmed this year Steve James (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the song was begun in New Orleans, that’s fairly well documented. According to author Clinton Heylin's 2009 book Revolution in the Air, Collins has claimed that Dylan completed the song at her house (as outlined in the article). Now, unless her house happened to be located on Max Yasgur's farm, which I suppose is vaguely possible, this simply can't be true. It's also worth noting that Collins may be mistaken because journalist Al Aronowitz has also claimed that Dylan completed the song at his house. Also, let's not forget that Dylan wrote this song in 1964 and no-one had heard of Max Yasgur in 1964 because the Woodstock festival didn't happen until 1969. As I say, unless Collins' house just happened to be located on Max Yasgur's land in Woodstock, I'm not buying this for a second. I think memories have got foggy over the course of 45+ years. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Towards FA: a few ideas/suggestions
These are just a few things I noticed, but if you disagree, no worries:
 * 1) In the lead: "The song is one of just three that was included twice in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, since both The Byrds' version and Dylan's own version are included" seems to me like too trivial a point for the lead, particularly the "one of just three" part. Whether or not you want to mention the RS listing in the lead is up to you (I don't have a strong opinion either way). When we put Like a Rolling Stone up for FAC, one reviewer asked us to remove the RS ranking from the lead since it put too much emphasis on a single list, so we did. When we were doing The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, nobody asked us to, but we talked about taking it out from the lead for the same reason, but never got around to it.
 * 2) In the lead: "See 1965 in music" seems unusual to me. I don't remember having seen this kind of link in many music articles. But it's possible I've just missed them. It seems out of place to me, but, again, I don't have a really strong opinion.
 * 3) Other releases: "The song has always been a personal favorite of Dylan's, and he has said that "it's the only song I tried to write 'another one'", although he did not succeed." I'm always suspicious about objective statements that such-and-such song is a "favorite" of someone's. People's preferences can change from day to day, and what might have been someone's favorite when they were quoted may not necessarily be a favorite later. The next bit ("it's the only song I tried to write 'another one'", although he did not succeed.") sounds awkward and it's not clear what it means when he says he tried to write another one, nor what it means that he did not succeed. I would consider just cutting this sentence altogether.
 * 4) Other releases: "Two 1964 recordings of the song by Dylan have been made available on compact disc." But they have also been released on vinyl. See: [] and [].
 * 5) The Byrd's version: "However, it was The Byrds who first melded these disparate elements into a unified whole, creating the template for folk rock heard around the globe during the mid-1960s." I don't doubt this is true, but it's still a pretty big claim. Maybe provide more than one reference or soften it by saying "so-and-so has argued that . . ." The next sentence "Although Dylan's recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was not itself a direct influence on the genre, his recordings with an electric rock backing on the albums Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited certainly were" also sounds subjective and should be reworded or reworked somehow.
 * 6) Reception: "In the wake of "Mr. Tambourine Man" the influence of The Byrds could be heard in many recordings released by American acts, including The Turtles, Simon & Garfunkel, The Lovin' Spoonful, Barry McGuire, The Mamas & the Papas, Jefferson Airplane, We Five, Love, and Sonny & Cher.[10][34][58][59][60] In addition, by late 1965 The Beatles themselves were assimilating the sound of folk rock, and in particular The Byrds, into the material found on their Rubber Soul album, most notably on the songs "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone".[34][61][62][63] As the 1960s came to a close, folk rock changed and evolved away from this jangly template[33] but the influence of The Byrds could still be heard in the early 70's music of bands like Fairport Convention and Pentangle.[34][64] The Byrds folk rock sound has continued to influence bands from the 1970s through to the present day, including Big Star, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, R.E.M., The Long Ryders, The Smiths, The Bangles, The Stone Roses, Teenage Fanclub, The Bluetones, and Delays." This also sounds subjective to me. To be honest I'm not sure what Wikipedia's policy on this is, but if it were me I would definitely try to make it more objective by saying something like "Such-and-such Byrds biographer / music historian / rock critic sees the Byrds' influence in such bands as . . ."
 * 7) Other covers and references: There is much in this section that seems trivial to me, basically everything from "The song has appeared in films and television shows" onwards. If you do want to keep the American Idol performance, I don't see how the "Someone told me I Shot the Tambourine Man" reference is relevant. Then the books, and Dangerous Minds, references seem unnoteworthy to me. I haven't read either of the books, so I can't be sure how big or little a place the song plays in them, but in the case of Carrie, it sounds like it's just mentioned as one of several songs played at a prom. The funerals part is quite interesting, but if you do decide to take out the movies and books references, the funeral mentions will probably seem out of place, and it'd probably be better to limit this section to "Other covers."

That's all I noticed for now. If I see anything else I'll be sure to mention it. In the meantime, sometime in the next little while, I will try to begin any formatting cleanup that needs to be done. Moisejp (talk) 14:02, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to add my two-pence to some of the points that you've raised Moisejp...
 * I agree that the RS list is probably too trivial for the lead but feel that it should be relocated to elsewhere in the article, rather than deleted altogether.
 * The "see 1965 in music" thing is the preferred and correct WP method of linking to "in music" articles, rather than the more common but erroneous piped link, as outlined at WP:MUSTARD (see the "Internal links" section). I added this to the article because personally I hate seeing piped links to "in music" pages in Wikipedia articles - it's just one of my pet hates. :-)
 * I agree that this sentence sounds awkward - this was discussed in the GA review but Dylan's original quote is grammatically suspect and we elected to preserve it verbatim, rather than attempt to improve its grammatical structure. However, something really needs to be done with it because currently it does sound awkward. I'm not sure how best to improve it but I would be against deleting it. Yes, this quote dates from the early 70s and may not reflect Dylan's current thinking, but it is a very widely reproduced quote...I came across it again in a book I was reading literally two days ago. As such, I think it's worth keeping because it illustrates the high regard the song's author has (or had) for the composition.
 * OK, if they've been issued on vinyl then that needs to be added to the article.
 * As the person who originally wrote the "creating the template for folk rock heard around the globe during the mid-1960s" sentence, I must say that I've grown to absolutely hate it for pretty much the reasons you've outlined. It just sounds like non-NPOV crapola to me (even though I know it isn't). I think it definitely needs rewording and perhaps more supporting refs added. As for the following sentence about Dylan's electric work, is this even needed in an article specifically about "Mr. Tambourine Man"?
 * I have less of a problem with this section of text because not only is it true, it's also very well supported by refs. However, I take your point that it might sound less subjective if it was changed to something like ""Such-and-such Byrds biographer / music historian / rock critic sees the Byrds' influence in such bands as . . ."
 * This is tricky because while I agree that much of it could be considered trivial, in my experience one man's trivia is another man's vital nugget of information. My own take on it would be like yours Moisejp - delete everything from "The song has appeared in films and television shows" onwards. But I can't help feeling that this stuff was added by other editors who deemed it important, so it seems a bit mean to just discard it.


 * I'll try to get around to addressing the issues with The Byrds' section mentioned in points 5 and 6 at some point over the next week or so. One thing I wanted to bring up with you Moisejp, is the matter of ISBN numbers in inline refs. I don't really understand ISBN numbers but I noticed that in the "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" article you standardized all the ISBNs in the refs. In the process, I notice that you changed the ISBN for Tony Brown's The Complete Book of the British Charts from 0-7119-7670-8 to 0-71197-670-8. However, I can assure you (because I've got the book in front of me now) that 0-7119-7670-8 is the correct ISBN. I don't think that all ISBNs always have the same number of figures between the dashes...I don't think it's that straight forward. As I say, I don't really understand the arcane system behind ISBN numbers, so I just wanted to query this with you. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:27, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Kohoutek1138, how are you? I only have a few minutes right now, so I'll write fast.

1-2 OK.

3 Maybe something said something like "Dylan said in 197- that it was a personal favorite of his and that he had tried unsuccessfully to write 'another one'"? Still not 100% clear but at least it sets the context for when he said it so that readers can decide for themselves the likelihood his feelings may or may not have changed.

4 You could just not mention anything about CDs or vinyl and just say they were released.

5-6 OK, let's see what we can do along those lines.

7 I wouldn't let the possible feelings of people who have added this trivia hold you back from making a tentative change. It may well be they don't have any strong feelings about it (and I know I have made some edits while I was still a Wikipedia novice that I would never make now, but that I never got around to going back and changing), and if they do, it will come up in discussion on the edit summaries or talk page and some negotiation can be done then. That's what Wikipedia is all about: negotiation to reach consensus. But isn't one of the foundation principles of Wikipedia editing to be bold? We should make the changes, and if and when we hear any outcry (again, we may well not), then we can worry about negotiation/consensus.

About the "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" article, I have been really excited about it lately, and I have lots I want to add to the Dylan section when I get time. That's definitely in my mind a future GA project (but one thing at a time, I have enough on my plate as it is). About isbn numbers, I believe where the dashes go is arbitrary. If you look on the Amazon listing for the book, for the isbn-10 number, there are no dashes. In a GA or FA review for an article I worked on one reviewer asked that we standardize the all the isbn numbers to either isbn-10 or isbn-13 with the dashes in the same place. I'm not sure if that was just that reviewer's personal preference, but it makes good sense to me as a policy and it certainly looks neater. Gotta run. I'll try to get a bit of work done on this article in the next few days! Moisejp (talk) 11:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Other concerns/issues

 * "Dylan premiered the song the following month during a visit to England in what is considered one of the landmark concerts of the 1960s, his solo May 17 appearance at London's Royal Festival Hall." This is attributed to Heylin's Revolution in the Air. I don't have that book so I don't know exactly what Heylin says, but I do know Heylin is very opinionated, so even if he says the show is "considered one of the landmark concerts of the 1960s" I'd be unsure whether that really reflects widespread opinion. In the book does Heylin truly convince the readers that this is widespread opinion? Otherwise two options would be to cut the "landmark concert" part or else add a couple more references of people who have said it is. What do you think? Moisejp (talk) 09:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Heylin doesn't claim it was a "landmark concert". I deleted that editorial. Rlendog (talk) 02:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the Composition and Recording section where throughout people's interpretations are listed without attributing them to someone in the main text (though of course there are references). For example the sentence: "The singer is praying to his muse for inspiration; ironically the song itself is evidence that the muse has already provided the sought-after inspiration." This is stated as though it were fact. Similarly, "Though weary, the narrator is unable to sleep and wants to hear Mr. Tambourine Man's song, believing that the song will fulfill his desire to be set free" is just one person's interpretation of the song, but it is not mentioned as such. Of course, intelligent readers will check the footnote and realize this is intended as someone's opinion. Still, I'm worried that this section's style is not objective enough. I'd be more comfortable if each idea was attributed to someone (or to "some feel that," etc. as the case may be) in the main text. But I do realize that this would change the easy flow of ideas present in the section now, and could get a little more bogged down from having to attribute each idea to someone. Does anyone have any opinions about this? Moisejp (talk) 09:58, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Kohoutek1138, we've discussed this sentece before above: "The song has always been a personal favorite of Dylan's, and he has said that "it's the only song I tried to write 'another one'", although he did not succeed." The reference given is Shelton. Just now I checked Shelton to see if I could try to fix it, and I couldn't find anything about the song being a personal favourite of Dylan's, all I found was the "only song I tried to write 'another one'" part. Do you have another ref where Dylan says it is one of his favourite songs, and which indicates when he said it? I would still like to specify when he said this, because as we noted above, we do not know if his feelings for it may have changed in the meantime. Moisejp (talk) 10:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't have the Heylin Revolution in the Air book but the claim of it being "considered one of the landmark concerts of the 1960s" sounds like typical Heylin hyperbole to me. However, I believe that it was Rlendog who contributed this sentence and reference, so it's probably best to wait until he's had his say about it. As for people's opinions in the Composition and Recording sections, I agree that these should be changed to attribute the comments directly to these commentators, perhaps beginning each sentence with something like "Joe Bloggs has noted in his book I Dig Dylan that...".


 * With the Shelton sourced quote about the song being the "only song I tried to write 'another one', as previously stated the grammar in this has bugged me since the GA review...perhaps we should change it from being a direct quote to improve the grammar? You know, change it to something like "The song has always been a personal favorite of Dylan's, and according to an interview that he gave with Joe Bloggs in 1977, it is the only song of his that he consciously tried to emulate in subsequent compositions, although he did not succeed." I'm sure that we can do better than that but hopefully you catch my drift. As for a ref supporting the statement that it's a favourite of Dylan's, I've got nothing, although if he consciously tried to write similar songs, it's pretty obvious that he thinks (or thought) highly of it.


 * As an aside, apologies for not getting around to implementing the changes that we've discussed in your first "Towards FA" post Moisejp. I was only thinking a day or two ago that I really should get on and make those changes. I'll try to get around to addressing points 5 and 6 relating to The Byrds' section in the next few days. I know that I've said that before but trust me, I will. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * RITH Doesn't make "landmark" claims (at least not under MTM section), says he debuted the song in the afternoon and the night's performance "ranks high in the pantheon of live Dylan performances." OTOH I wonder if this is the RAH concert when both the Beatles and assorted Stones attended - which in someway would make it a notable concert. However, my timeline of these events are suspect, to say the least.
 * RITH says "As he (Dylan) told his friend John Cohen, "I tried to write another MTM. It's the only one I tried to write another one." --Richhoncho (talk) 21:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Good info there Richhoncho! The sentence definitely needs rewording in that case, and Heylin's statement that the RAH concert "ranks high in the pantheon of live Dylan performances" could be used as long as its specifically attributed to him in the text. The John Cohen bit means that a mention of Dylan's attempts to emulate MTM should definitely be retained, but there's still no mention of the song being a personal favourite of Dylan's. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 22:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify: first public performance of MTM was at the Royal Festival Hall on May 17, 1964. This is Bjorner's listing . It was a landmark concert in the sense that Dylan received a lot of coverage in the press, it was his first major concert in England. The Evening Standard devoted a 2 page feature to him by Maureen Cleave - I remember reading it! Sounes describes this concert on pp. 155-157, and says John Lennon sent Dylan a telegram expressing regret that The Beatles could not be there. (Sounes says that they were prevented by a filming commitment, but according to Mark Lewisohn's Beatles' Chronicles, they were on holiday at this time!) Sounes describes it as "an important performance".The famous RAH concert which The Beatles and Stones attended was 2 years later - 26 and 27 May, 1966. Bjorner . The second half was the electric set with The Hawks backing Dylan, and this concert is the basis of the mislabelled "Royal Albert Hall" concert - which was of course recorded in Manchester on May 17, 1966. Mick gold (talk) 07:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoops, sorry, I forgot: Dylan gave 2 important performances at RAH on May 9 & 10, 1965. These were filmed for Dont Look Back- Bjorner . Sounes says "The Beatles and Rolling Stones were in the audience, and clearly everyone hung on Bob's every word." (p. 175) Mick gold (talk) 09:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was under the impression that the Beatles and the Stones were at the 1965 RAH concert...in fact, isn't it mentioned in Don't Look Back? As for the 1964 Royal Festival Hall concert, my feeling is still that we should point out that it was Dylan's first major concert in England, his first performance of MTM in public and even use quotes like "an important performance" as long as they are attributed to a specific author. But I think we should steer clear of phrases like "landmark" because it smacks of non-NPOV, even though it isn't really. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops. Sorry to confuse with my mixing up the dates (and the medicine). --Richhoncho (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I've had a go at addressing points 5 and 6 in your above list of improvements Moisejp. Hopefully these sections are now a little less subjective sounding. Of course, if you still have a problem with these portions of text then do let me know, and I'll see what else I can do. I've also added a media sample of The Byrds' demo recording of MTM to the relevant section. I'm toying with the idea of adding another media sample of Dylan & Rambilin' Jack Elliott's MTM demo, taken from the The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack CD. What do others think of this idea? Would an audio sample of this demo enhance the article or illustrate anything that can't be explained in text? Of course, words can't describe the sheer horror of how out of tune Ramblin' Jack Elliott's singing is on that recording but I’m not sure that’s relevant! :-D --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

A tambourine is a simple percussive instrument which can't vary the pitch or sustain a note. So can a tambourine man play a song for me? --EustacetheTerrible (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2017 (UTC) EustacetheTerrible

Footnotes, References
I've just noticed all the excellent work going into re-writing this article. Respect. I had one query. The article ends with References, in which many refs are made to Heylin, Williamson, Shelton, etc. In other articles progressing towards FA, there is both a Footnotes and References section, the latter lists all the books (sorry to state the obvious). I wondered if Mr Tambourine Man could have similar format, which is a helpful way to see books/works cited.

I also had an extract from a critic to suggest for this article. It's from a book called Future Rock by David Downing, published 1976 by Panther (ISBN 9780586043080). The author focuses on the differences between Dylan's and The Byrds' recording:


 * The song itself, as performed by Dylan, contains four verses and five choruses. It is literary, complex, poetic. A new wave folk song. One acoustic guitar going G-A-D-G. The version that came out in The Byrds' name has two choruses and one verse. The verse they use is the shortest and most direct. It is still a folk song, but now it is also a pop song and a rock'n'roll song. It is still literary but now it moves. The bass thuds the intro, the electric twelve-string jangles a rhythm-lead throughout. It is the first rock song.

It's a bit long but I thought it was an acute analysis of these two almost simultaneous releases. Mick gold (talk) 17:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I'm right in saying that you're referring to the "shortened footnotes" system of referencing, using the sfn template, as outlined here. This method produces a "Notes" section with shortened refs that link directly to a "References" section, as seen in "The Long and Winding Road" article. You're absolutely right that most (if not all) FA articles seem to use this method and as such, I agree 100% that the MTM article should also utilize this style of inline refs. I have a little bit of experience with using this system from the work I've done on the Gram Parsons article. I'm not sure if there's an easy, automated way to convert all the refs in an article to this format, but if not, I'll volunteer to manually change the refs, as long as we're all in agreement on this. It certainly makes for a more streamlined and less cluttered look.


 * As for the extract you provided, yeah, I think parts of that could be used, although I'd take exception with calling the Byrds' version "the first rock song". Still, if nothing else, the part that states "The song itself, as performed by Dylan, contains four verses and five choruses" could be used to support a mention of the structure of Dylan's version—although The Byrds section does cover this to a degree. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 20:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I can handle changing the references over. Just give me a couple of days, thanks! Moisejp (talk) 12:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Kohoutek1138, how's it going? Changing the refs over is taking me longer than I thought, but I am working away at it a bit at a time. If you still want to help with that, I wouldn't object, but I also don't mind doing it myself, it'll just take some time. I was afraid in my comment above I might have sounded like "Hands off, I'm doing this!" but I didn't mean it that way. Moisejp (talk) 22:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha! Well, I'm certainly not going to object if you want to do it alone because it looks like a pretty laborious task to me. Still, you're doing a great job so far. I've actually been quite curious to watch how you do it because I've never converted refs on a wholesale scale like this before and there are at least a couple of other articles I'd like to try this on. Since you're half way through and you obviously know where you've got up to, it might be best if you carry on doing this alone. I don't mean to cop out or anything, but I think that we could end up in a muddle if I start tampering now...too many cooks and all that. Hope that's OK with you. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 09:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem! I haven't been as systematic about it as I could have been. But my basic method has been to go through the refs, copy and paste them into the Reference section, remove the page number, split the name up into first and last, try to keep the order of the different components within the template somewhat consistent (not really necessary, but I guess I like consistency). In some cases, for example the Allmusic ones, there wasn't always an author listed in the original reference, but when I went and checked the website I could find the author of the review, so I added that in. I have also been trying to do multiple refs by the same author at the same time, so that when I copy and paste I can leave the name as is for more than one which saves just a little work. Once I'm done all the moving all the refs to the Reference section I will change all the references in the main text to the Harvard system, for example: . Yeah, as you say, it is a bit laborious, but it's really satisfying at the end when all the refs look really nice & pretty. So, anyway, no I don't mind continuing working on it on my own—it'll just take a bit of time. Maybe this weekend I'll find some more time to do a little more work on it. Moisejp (talk) 14:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * What is the purpose of changing over the reference style? The existing style is perfectly appropriate for an FA. Rlendog (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, as you can see from the discussion above, the change over in refs was prompted by Mick gold's comment that other FA articles seem to use this Harvard-style, "shortened footnotes" system. I have to agree that most of the FA articles that I've seen utilize this type of references set-up. Of course, I'm no expert on FA criteria...I'm just going by what I've seen in the past. However, the impression that a Harvard-style refs/footnotes system is required for FA articles was reinforced for me when, during the GA review for The Notorious Byrd Brothers (see here), the GA reviewer told me that I might need to convert the refs to the Harvard style if I wanted to take the article to FA status. In addition, the three other Bob Dylan-related FA articles all utilize this method of refs. As I say though, I'm no expert and I bow to your superior knowledge of the FA criteria. Maybe we should leave them as they were then...although Moisejp's done an awful lot of work in converting them thus far. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think Harvard style is an FA requirement. One of the FAs I've been involved with, Like a Rolling Stone, uses that style, since that was the style it was in when we started working towards FA.  But the other one, Primate, does not.  Someone who commented on Notorious Byrd Brothers may have a personal preference for that style, but I don't think it is a requirement.  The citation guideline states "Citations in Wikipedia articles should use a consistent style. Any of the following styles are acceptable so long as each article is internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected.  Similarly, there are several methods of internal formatting or markup that can be used to create a given displayed citation. The best practice is for a given article to be consistent in internal markup or formatting. It is better to follow the patterns in place if an article has a stable citation structure. Changing existing citations from one format to another should generally be done only with local consensus, and should never be the subject of an edit war.  However, if an editor can provide a new relevant reference, either to new content or to existing unsourced content, it is more important for the citation to the reference to be recorded in some format. Another editor can always edit the reference to bring it into consistency with the style and formatting of the existing citations in the article," which certainly does not require a particular reference style, or even provide that a particular style is preferable. Rlendog (talk) 00:02, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, the Featured Article criteria state:
 * "It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of—
 * (a) a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
 * (b) appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and
 * (c) consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended. The use of citation templates is not required."Rlendog (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Although at this point I am not sure which is more work - switching back or continuing to move towards Harvard style, since the key seems to be internal consistency. Rlendog (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, that's interesting. Thanks for the clarification Rlendog. I guess that we should wait until Moisejp has had a chance to comment before we do anything, but it's almost certainly going to be less work to change the refs back to how they were than to complete the process. All we'd have to do is revert the article back to just before Moisejp started the change over, making a note of any other constructive edits that have occurred in the meantime. I'll leave a message on Moisejp's talk page that we're discussing this mater and hopefully he'll comment soon. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 10:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually just saw another FA that I was slightly involved in switch over to a Harvard-like system, so maybe there was a decision somewhere about this that is not (yet) reflected in the guidelines I look to. I'll need to check into that. Rlendog (talk) 03:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello. Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I have been out of town and offline. About whether or not to continue to make the changeover to Harvard or to change it back to what it was, I have a slight preference for continuing but I am willing to go either way. When I started doing the changeover the consensus seemed to be for that. I agree that using the Harvard system does not seem to be a requirement but I just thought it was cleaner that way, and that it'd be nice to be consistent with the other recent Dylan FAs. But I realize this article is very much Riendog's and Kohoutek1138's baby, and if either of you have objections to such a formatting change, we can get rid of it. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to make the changeover, which has resulted in the article being in a somewhat messy state of limbo for too long. When I get back from my trip if I hopefully can find a few hours to dedicate to it, I believe I could mostly finish the process, at least for the refs that are not in debate above. But again, whatever, if you'd rather just go back to what it was, OK. Moisejp (talk) 05:54, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update Moisejp! I guess we should wait and see what Rlendog has managed to find out about Harvard-style refs in FAs, as outlined in his above post. I'm kind of torn about this because on the one hand, if a change over isn't required I'm apt to think "what's the point?" but on the other hand, I agree that a Harvard-style ref layout is much nicer looking and somewhat easier to navigate. As for the article being mine and Rlendog's "baby", I think that I can safely speak for Rlendog when I say that neither of us views this article as ours and we're both very happy to have other editors improve the article in any way that they see fit. The fact that we previously both worked to get the article up to GA status doesn't really have any bearing or relevance to this discussion. Anyway, considering all things, at the moment I think I’m still leaning towards having you continue the ref change over Moisejp. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with the Harvard references, I just didn't think they were necessary. And it turns out that the editor who recently revised Ring-tailed Lemur to use Harvard did so out of personal preference, not as a requirement.  But if people prefer the Harvard look, I have no problem. And as Kohoutek1138 says, neither of us own the article. Rlendog (talk) 01:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks quite likely that my work on The Basement Tapes is on hold for a little while (see Talk: The Basement Tapes), so when I get back I should have some time to concentrate on "Tambourine Man". After I write this note I may not make it online again for a number of days (not sure) but will have regular access again from the 8th of August. Moisejp (talk) 12:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. Sounds good. I'll continue along with the changeover then. Moisejp (talk) 11:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Newport Performances
I am just wondering: weren't there two performances of this song at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival? I am asking this because of the differing lengths between the releases of this song coming from Newport. One (released on No Direction Home, clocks at 5:13, but the other, released as an iTunes bonus track to the soundtrack for the film of the same name, clocks at about 7:33. I haven't listened to the latter version, and the former seems to be unedited. And shouldn't there be a section (or sub-section) on Dylan's Newport performances of "Mr. Tambourine Man"? BootleggerWill (talk) 02:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, there was only one performnce of MTM at Newport in 1964 as far as I know. He did play it again at Newport in 1965 though, after the infamous electric set. The 1964 version I know, which is the iTunes bonus track, is indeed 7.30 in length and has very little talk at the start or applause at the end - maybe accounting for 15 seconds at most I'd say. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 16:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's make a decision
All right, before I reach the bottom of the article (for changing the references over to Harvard) can we decide once and for all what we are going to do about the "Other covers and references" section. Before we were discussing possibly cutting everything that wasn't a cover (i.e., TV, movies, books and funerals). I do think there is some slightly interesting info in there but overall I'm not sure if we should keep it. To review previous points made, plus add a couple more:
 * We say "The song has appeared in films and television shows" but we only actually mention one film and one television show, which is not too convincing. At first I didn't get the point of the "I Shot Mr. Tambourine Man" line, but after I realized it's because he messed up the lyrics he, so to speak, tarnished/"shot" the song. Now that I get it, I find it's reasonably interesting/amusing. But I'm not convinced it's relevant enough to mention as "representing" the song's use on TV. Plus, the fact that American Idol is a show where there are regularly musical performances given, this TV "appearance" is perhaps even less noteworthy. I guess its use in Dangerous Minds, where students discuss it in class, does show the extent to which the song has permeated society. But . . . what do you think?
 * I don't know how relevant its mention in Electric Kool-Aid Test is, but in Carrie it seems to possibly just be one several in a list of songs played at a prom.
 * The funeral part is interesting, but if we decide not to keep movies, TV and books, the funeral part will be out of place. Basically, I think we need to decide to keep all or nothing. I kind of think nothing would be a good idea, but if people are set on all, that could be OK, too. Moisejp (talk) 13:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't personally have a problem with removing the appearances in other media and funerals. On the other hand, those references do give readers a sense of the song's influence in society outside pure music.  So condensing may be better.  Perhaps a single paragraph noting the books, the movie, the TV show and perhaps the play at funerals would suffice.   I.e., "'Mr. Tambourine Man' has been referenced in novels such as Electric Kool-Aid Test and Carrie.  The students in the movie Dangerous Minds study the poetry of 'Mr. Tambourine Man', and discuss possible drug-related meanings.  It was played at the funerals of journalist Hunter S Thompson and Beatles' road manager Neil Aspinall." Rlendog (talk) 13:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Rlendog on this...the paragraph should be compressed as per his suggestion, since some of it is a little trivial. However, I strongly feel that the mention of American Idol and Jason Castro getting the words wrong should be deleted. I mean, seriously...some bloke got the words of "Mr. Tambourine Man" wrong on TV once and then made some half-arsed pun on "I Shot the Sheriff" and that's notable how?! This adds nothing to the article in my view and should definitely be removed. I don’t mind doing the re-writing/condensing of this section by the way, just let me know when to go ahead. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 10:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, sounds good, Kohoutek1138. Why don't you go ahead and see what you can do with it? Thanks! Moisejp (talk) 12:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, it took longer than I thought it would, but I have finished changing everything over to Harvard. I tried to make the style consistent with what I did on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Basement Tapes, but if anyone disagrees with any of the fine points in my style, let's discuss. Now I'm going to go back and look at the concerns I mentioned above (not just under the present heading but the ones under other headings above) and see what content may need tweaking. Also, while I was changing the refs to Harvard style, I noticed at least a couple where what was claimed in our article didn't seem to necessarily be supported by the reference. As someone who is coming onto this article relatively recently, and as I don't have a strong background in Byrds lore, I think it'd be useful as an "outsider" for me to go through at least all the online refs one by one to double check that our claims are supported. That'll probably be a big job, but I'll try to work away at it bit by bit. Moisejp (talk) 07:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW, apparently Dylan's version of "MTM" also appears in the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It could be one to mention in the films part of the article, and could also be used as a transition b/t the films and the funerals part, since we talk about Hunter Thompson's funeral, too. Here are a couple of refs although neither are perfect b/c one doesn't specifically say it was the Dylan version that was used and the other only says the song appears on the soundtrack, and doesn't mention its use in the film itself. [] []. (Well, almost always, but not 100% of the time, songs on a soundtrack are also in the film itself, but very very occasionally you get songs that "inspired"/"were inspired by" the film but don't actually appear in the film. This doesn't appear to be one of those cases, though.) There may be other good refs out there if we decide to look for them. Kohoutek1138, if when you condensing the "other references" part into one paragraph, if you want to look into this you can, or if not maybe I could try to do something with it at some point. Cheers. Moisejp (talk) 07:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at streamlining the "Other covers and references" section...I’ve been meaning to do this for ages now! Hopefully, I haven't removed anything that anyone thought was essential. I am still lacking a decent ref for the song's appearance in Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson though. Annoyingly, the IMDb doesn't have a listing of songs that actually appear in the film. The excellent Dylan website "Searching for a Gem" confirms that it is the version from Bringing It All Back Home that is used in the film (see here) but I'm not sure that this would be considered a reliable source by wiki standards - even though, as any Dylan fan should know, this website is exceedingly well researched. Anyway, hopefully someone else might be able to dig up a good, reliable ref for this. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I like what you've done with that, Kohoutek1138. Looks good. Yeah, "Searching for a Gem" was where I originally looked to see if there were any other movies that used "MTM" but I figured it wouldn't be an accepted source for a FA candidate, so I looked elsewhere for reliable sources saying the song was used in the movie. Just now I looked some more but after a while I felt like I was wasting my time and gave up. Maybe we could cite the Gonzo DVD itself. I'll try to find a serious-sounding editor who has worked on either the movie's Wikipedia article or Thompson's article who has the movie to confirm it was used in the film, and then just cite the DVD. Moisejp (talk) 07:31, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, sounds like a good plan. So, what else do we think needs to be done to this article, content-wise, to ready it for FA assessment? One thing that I've been thinking about is that there doesn't seem to be enough pictures or other media—audio samples for instance—in this article. What does everyone else think? Finding pictorial, free content for modern musical artists is difficult but worth doing because, as I'm sure we all know, pictures impart valuable information, while breaking up large sections of text and thus, engaging the reader.


 * As for audio samples, I added an early demo recording of The Byrds' performing MTM a few months ago, since it was mentioned in the text. But are there other versions of the song by Dylan (or other artists) that we should add? Maybe a sample of William Shatner’s bizarre cover would be useful? I'm fairly experienced with adding audio samples to Wiki articles, so I can definitely implement this if we decide that it’s a good idea. While we’re on the subject, audio samples of the studio versions of MTM by Dylan and The Byrds are currently situated within their respective infoboxes. Are we happy with having them there, or would they be better situated within the text itself? Myself, I'm leaning towards leaving them in the infoboxes but I'd be interested in other opinions. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 08:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hot off the presses at Searching for a Gem, "MTM" has been used in the 2010 Brazilian film Os Famosos E Os Duendes Da Morte [The Famous And The Dead] . We'll have to find a ref for that as well. Moisejp (talk) 13:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find anywhere besides "Searching for a Gem" that says the Dylan song is used in Os Famosos E Os Duendes Da Morte [The Famous And The Dead]. We may have to focus on the fact that the song is referenced in the film, in which the main character calls himself "Mr. Tambourine Man". Moisejp (talk) 07:39, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Kohoutek1138, you don't mind if I call you Paul, do you? My first name is Moise, btw, and I am the same age as you. Anyway, if you want to add more pics or audio samples that sounds OK to me, but I really think the text itself is what we need to work on. I brought this up above a while back, but I'm still not comfortable with some of the writing style in the Composition and Recording section, particularly the sentences where we write someone's interpretation as though it were fact and then just cite that person, e.g.: "The song has a bright, expansive melody"; "Though weary, the narrator is unable to sleep and wants to hear Mr. Tambourine Man's song, believing that the song will fulfill his desire to be set free"; "The singer is praying to his muse for inspiration; ironically the song itself is evidence that the muse has already provided the sought-after inspiration". I'm also still very uncomfortable with the sentence: "The song has always been a personal favorite of Dylan's, and he has said that "it's the only song I tried to write 'another one'", although he did not succeed" (as I wrote before, my problem is not just the awkwardness of the second part of the sentence but also the futility of trying to nail down something as being someone's "favorite"—as though favorites never changed. You've said you want to try to keep it, but I think if we do, we really need to think of a way to put the first part in context as something he once said and not imply that it's necessarily still true. The Reception section begins well with some of the assertions of the Byrds' influence attributed in the text itself to Ruhlmann and Unterberger. But then the next three sentences do not mention in the text itself who has asserted this influence. OK, I will try to take some initiative in the coming days to help fix those bits up. Moisejp (talk) 12:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Re: "The Byrds' jangly, folk rock sound has continued to influence bands from the 1970s up to the present day, including Big Star, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, R.E.M., The Long Ryders, The Smiths, The Bangles, The Stone Roses, and Teenage Fanclub." As I mentioned above, I want to reword this to make clear it was Smith's and Rogan's assertion. I've found from the "Look Inside!" service on Amazon that Smith mentions Big Star, Tom Petty & the H's, R.E.M., the Stone Roses and Teenage Fanclub. Presumably Rogan (1998) mentions the Long Ryders, the Smiths and the Bangles? Does he also mention any of the ones Smith mentions? Depending how much he does, it may affect my choice of wording. Moisejp (talk) 13:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course you can call me Paul. Addressing your last point first, on p. 417 of Timeless Flight Revisited Rogan says that R.E.M., The Bangles and The Smiths were all influenced by The Byrds' jangly Rickenbacker guitar sound. However, he doesn't mention The Long Ryders, so it looks as if we're going to need a ref for them. As arguably the premier Paisley Underground band (a movement that itself was heavily influenced by The Byrds), I feel that The Long Ryders should be mentioned - their song "Ivory Tower" is the best song The Byrds never wrote! ;-) The main Allmusic entry for The Long Ryders lists The Byrds in the "Influenced by" section, but perhaps a better ref would be the Allmusic review of The Long Ryders' debut EP (see here). See what you think.


 * As for your other concerns over the tone of some of the article, I'll also see what I can do over the next few days to improve these things. Hopefully between the two of us we can sort these bits out. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 16:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I've had a go at addressing your concerns about the article Moise. In the "Composition and recording" section I've tried to attribute the various interpretations of MTM to the authors that made them; I've reworded the "song has always been a personal favorite of Dylan's" sentence to eliminate the actual quote—thus solving the grammatical problems—and I've also added the disclaimer "in the past" to indicate that this might not be Dylan's current thinking (hopefully you'll think that this is an improvement); in the "Reception" sub-section of The Byrds' section, I've again tried to attribute the statements about the band's influence to the respective commentators; and I've also added Mark Deming's review of The Long Ryders' 10-5-60 EP as a supporting ref for The Byrds' influence on that particular band as suggested above. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking good, Paul. I feel your edits have improved the article quite a bit. I didn't have a chance to read through the article really thoroughly just now, but skimming over the parts I was concerned about, I'm thinking they look a lot better. This weekend I'm going to try to look at it again with a critical eye. Also, as I mentioned before, I would ideally like to go through all the online sources to confirm they support the text, but whether will I manage to get to every single one or not, I do not know. Hopefully I'll be able to start on that this weekend as well. In the Reception section there is a "citation needed" tag, which I added a while back because the webpage that was cited before didn't seem to support the info given. Dunno if in any of your Byrds books you have another ref for that, but otherwise we can see if we can find anything online. Oh, and I still have to deal with citing the Hunter S. Thompson DVD as I promised. This weekend I'll really try to get something done on all that. Moisejp (talk) 13:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking towards the FA review
Paul and Riendog, how's it going? I was wondering how far both of you think this thing is to being ready for FAC and what else still needs to be done? Looking over it, it seems relatively solid to me, except for a few little things. We still need a ref for the Gonzo movie (I tried contacting someone who worked on the movie's article but got no reply—I'll try someone else), and I still need add in that Brazilian movie. Then that sentence about Fairport Convention is weak—I couldn't find any refs for "influenced bands like Pentagle and F.C." so it ended up being about only F.C. unless we can find more refs. But besides that I'm relatively happy with the article. One question: To bring this to FAC we are supposed to be familiar with all the references. About the book references, I only have a handful: Heylin (1995), Heylin (2009), Sounes and Shelton. Between the two of you do you have most or all of the other book refs? I'm slowly working my way through trying to become familiar with the online refs. Something else I put off bringing up because it is a kind of touchy topic, with some people strongly disagreeing, but it seems [MOS's] most recent version suggests using small t in "the" for band names midsentence, e.g the Velvet Underground. However, it is acceptable to use capital T's in wiki-links. I kind of prefer small t's even in wiki-links for consistency, but if you have strong feelings about wanting big T's in wiki-links, let me know. After I hear from you I will go ahead and change all the non-wiki-link mid-sentence T's, and possibly the wiki-link ones too. I'm looking forward to hearing from you about all of the above. Thanks! Moisejp (talk) 13:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the article still needs a thorough proofreading for grammar etc. I will attempt to go through the whole article with a fine-tooth comb in the coming days. This is important because in my experience, "trivial" things like grammar, punctuation and syntax are often overlooked by the zealots who conduct FA reviews; they're far too busy worrying about whether the right kind of dash has been used to bother about trifling details like basic English. I'm a FA cynic...can you tell? ;-) Still, I’m cynical with good reason: I have seen some absolutely atrocious pigeon English/gobbledygook make it through to the front page in a Featured Article, and I always think to myself "how did everybody miss that?!" I might get Mild Bill Hiccup to have a look at this article if no-one objects. He's a very good—but not too invasive—copyeditor that I've worked with on a few GA's before.


 * I'll also try to address the Fairport/Pentangle sentence problem over the next day or two. As far as familiarity with offline references goes, I'm familiar with (i.e. I own) all the Byrds-related refs used (Rogan, Fricke, Eder, Hjort ), as well as Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, Heylin's Behind the Shades, Richie Unterberger's Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution, Paul Williams' Bob Dylan Performing Artist: The Early Years 1960–1973 and Dylan's own Lyrics book. In addition, a number of other books used in this article (Creswell and Smith for example) were sourced from Google Books, so you could say that we're familiar with those as well.


 * With regards the capital "T" in The Byrds, I was wondering when this issue would come up. :-D First of all, just to be clear, "The" is part of the band's name, just like The Velvet Underground or The Beatles, and is not simply a prefix to a singular or plural noun. Secondly, as per the Manual of Style (music), capitalizing of "'The' may be preferred when listing bands", while a "capitalized 'The' is optional in wikilinks." Since the main Byrds' article and all of the articles relating to their individual albums and singles also universally use "The Byrds" with a capitalised 'T', I feel that this preference among the regular editors of those article should be carried through to this article as well for consistency. The music MOS is fairly ambiguous about this and I've always taken that to mean that it's largely down to editor consensus. For a comparison, see how the regular editors working on The Beatles' article have also chosen to use a capital "T" throughout...and that article managed to pass a FA review. Lastly, I feel that the use of a capital T is justified because "The Byrds" is a trademarked name and as such, it should be written with capitalisation on both words at all times, as per WP:MOSTM. I hope that puts my case across clearly but if you disagree, please let me know. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Paul. Sorry for my late reply. I think by the time an article makes it to the Front page it's usually quite a while after FAR so it may have been edited quite a bit by various editors and the quality may be slightly less than it was. My impression is that usually right after FAR an article that has passed is in pretty good shape. But that said, there are of course politics and other issues involved and some articles that are scrutinized more than others. But anyway, that's all beside the point. If you would like to ask Mild Bill Hiccup to look at it, that'd be great!
 * The thing about "The" vs. "the" is that it's such a controversial topic, there's no way to please everyone. Both sides think their reasoning makes perfect sense. I'm a "the" person myself, and for me the reasons you gave are not convincing at all. But it's too exhausting to argue about it. At the end of the day it's a matter of style and is arbitrary. After reading the link I do agree with you that the Manual of Style (music) seems to leave the door open for either approach. (But BTW that page is constantly being edited and there doesn't seem to be any consensus (see its Talk page) and is unlikely to ever be any; on Nov. 1 somebody added "Capitalized "The" may be preferred when listing bands, e.g. In mid-1962 The Rolling Stones started as one of a number of groups increasingly showing blues influence, along with bands such as The Animals and The Yardbirds." which just goes to show how much it can swing one way or the other with one edit.)  So anyways, let's go with "The." It's unlikely anyone will question the choice during FAR. But if they do I'm going to stay out of the argument.
 * Cool, so if you ask MBH to look at this and we fix up the remaining little issues we've been talking out we may be getting closer to being ready. I'm sorry I haven't done much work on this lately. I have been especially busy with work and family. I do hope to make some concentrated edits on this again in the near future. Thanks and talk again soon! Moisejp (talk) 13:16, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Dead external links to Allmusic website – January 2011
Since Allmusic have changed the syntax of their URLs, 1 link(s) used in the article do not work anymore and can't be migrated automatically. Please use the search option on http://www.allmusic.com to find the new location of the linked Allmusic article(s) and fix the link(s) accordingly, prefereably by using the Allmusic template. If a new location cannot be found, the link(s) should be removed. This applies to the following external links: --CactusBot (talk) 18:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=17:3044706

Removed the link to the mentioned URL. Bulldog73 (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Drug-related songs category
This article is currently in the category Drug-related songs. However, the article states that "[t]here has been speculation that the song is about drugs such as LSD or marijuana..." Could this be removed from the category to avoid dispute? Thanks, Bulldog edit my talk page   da contribs  07:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me...without looking, I would expect most of the songs listed in Category: Drug-related songs to be highly dubious inclusions, lacking any concrete citation to support the claim. Since it's only speculated that "Mr. Tambourine Man" is about drugs, including it in that category seems a bit much. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:27, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm off to remove it now. Good call. --Richhoncho (talk) 13:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Byrds' Version: The Length of their single is incorrect in this article (sidebar)

 * Not sure where this note should go, but in scanning the right 'Sidebar' with info for the Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" (Release date, Recording date, etc.), I noticed that the length is listed as "2:29." That is incorrect. The original mono 45-single had a length of 2:18, whch can be verified by checking the liner notes (pg.13) of the Columbia/Legacy reissue cd of the album "Mr. Tambourine Man" (CK 64845). There is a pictire of the promo "Radio Station Copy" single, with the running time clearly showing. When the song was re-mixed in 1992 from the eight-track's by Vic Anesini and Tim Geelan, it was extended to a length of 2:29, due to a much longer fade (Columbia/Legacy CK 47884; "20 Essential Tracks From The Boxed Set"). This was perpetuated on the 1996 re-issue cd of the MTM album (CK 64845). Just wanted to set the record straight and avoid 'revisionist history.' Otherwise, this is an excellent article on a classic song.

Originally posted on April 1, 2012, but no reaction received. Frank60s (talk) 17:05, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Quite right, well spotted. Although to be pedantic about it, the Vic Anesini extended, wide-stereo remix actually appeared in 1990 on the Byrds' first box set, not in 1992. I'll correct this now. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Appreciate your correcting the running time of the Byrds' single. All due respect, but Vic Anesini's wide stereo remix of "Mr. Tambourine Man" did NOT appear on the 1990 Box Set; it appeared for the first time as I stated on the 1992 "20 Essential Tracks" cd. Give them a listen. The Box Set version is notated as "Remixed true stereo version from Never Before", and was clearly remixed into very narrow stereo from the 3-track master. The wide stereo version which first appeared on the 1992 cd was clearly remixed from the "original eight-track master." These two remixes could not be more different. I understand that the actual title of the 1992 cd ("20 Essential Tracks From The Boxed Set: 1965-1990") suggests otherwise and is actually misleading; think of it as a minor, one-song anomaly. I remember the first time I heard "Mr. Tambourine Man" from the 1992 cd, the difference really jumped out at me sonically, and is clearly supported by the liner notes.


 * Please understand that I'm just setting the record straight on this matter;no offense meant. Frank60s (talk) 12:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, it's fine...no worries. I was relying on memory for my above comment and it's obviously faulty. I don't own the "20 Essential Tracks" CD, but I do recall hearing the Vic Anesini remix on the Columbia/Legacy reissue of the Mr. Tambourine Man album. To me, the single most revelatory thing about it is the fact that you can really hear Leon Russell's electric piano track, which was mixed very low (if not out altogether) in Terry Melcher's original mix. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:31, 15 April 2012 (UTC)