Textual Representation

I already interpreted many of these lyrics in the sound-in-time section, so this might be a little repetative.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

"On one session, Tom Wilson had asked [Bruce Langhorne, session musician for Dylan] to play tambourine," Dylan recalled in 1985. "And he had this gigantic tambourine...It was as big as a wagonwheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind." Langhorne confirmed that he "used to play this giant Turkish tambourine. It was about [four inches] deep, and it was very light and it had a sheepskin head and it had jingle bells around the edge - just one layer of bells all the way around...I bought it 'cause I liked the sound...I used to play it all the time."

-Dylan being funny

The song is about the essential young person's yearning for meaning, for the big time, for love, for excitement, for chaos and change, and their need to bury the past in pursuit of a chaotic, beautiful future that they know nothing about except it is different from the present.  

The narrator is singing to a Tambourine Man, who could be anyone or anything, or himself, any agent of change that could bring him far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.  He has been up all night, but all of the hopes and dreams of his night, "evening's empire", have returned into sand, and turned back into meaningless avenues that he doesn't look back at as he walks.  

The wild pursuit of an intangible ecstasy far from the concerns and frustrations of every day life is a constant theme and huge presence throughout the song.  Interestingly enough, in the movie "Dangerous Mindz" with Michelle Pfiefer as a young cute white schoolteacher for a class of inner city thugs, they analyze this song and come out with the conclusion that the Tambourine Man is a drug dealer, and the narrator is just trying to get high, which actually is a very valid take on the song, albeit a little less romantic and a bit flat.  This is an incredible piece of poetry, and it speaks to this feeling in each and every one of us that causes us to roam the streets wandering in search of something to fill the void inside our beings that for one reason for another exists.