“I Don’t Like It, Man”: How a David Crosby Note Changed the Byrds and Bob Dylan’s Careers Forever

When it was time for the Byrds to release their debut single on Columbia Records, the band knew they would have to make a big first impression—so, thank goodness David Crosby was involved in the song selection process. Otherwise, the Byrds might not have become the folk-rock pioneers we know them as today.

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And frankly, Bob Dylan might not have been, either.

David Crosby Pushed This Byrds Classic In The Right Direction

Columbia Records signing a band like the Byrds was a highly unusual development in the early 1960s, and the band knew it. They hardly fit Columbia’s usual bill of a jazz or “standards” ensemble. As a burgeoning rock band, they were a gamble. So, the Byrds knew they had to make their debut single on the label count in a major way. The band’s manager, Jim Dickson, suggested the band cut a version of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Dylan hadn’t even released his version of it yet, but the band was able to receive an early version of the song from Dylan’s publishing company.

David Crosby was the first to speak up. During an episode of the Rock & Roll High School podcast, Byrds founder Roger McGuinn recalled his bandmate saying, “‘I don’t like it, man.’ He said, ‘That folky 2/4 time never gonna play on the radio.’ And he was right. They were playing rock ‘n’ roll.” In a 2013 interview with Jason Verlinde of Fretboard Journal, Crosby volleyed the credit back to McGuinn.

“None of us were very good except Roger,” Crosby said. “Roger was really good. He could really actually play. Then it turned out he had this other talent, which was to be able to arrange, to translate, from a folk idiom into this early rock ‘n’ roll stuff that the Byrds did. He could arrange the song so that it would change it. He took “Mr. Tambourine Man” and made a record out of it—made it completely different from how Bob wrote it, hugely different from the demo that we heard.” 

“Different” proved to be what the public wanted. The song skyrocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and U.K. Singles Chart, ushering in a new era of folk-rock.

The Song Helped Inform Two Different Bands’ Trajectories

Without David Crosby’s suggestion and Roger McGuinn’s arrangement abilities, the Byrds might not have become the pioneers of the folk-rock movement that we know them as today. Their use of traditional folk á la Bob Dylan with jangly electric guitars and driving drum patterns helped bridge the gap between the acoustic music popular in the 1960s folk revival and the incoming flux of rock ‘n’ roll brought in by Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. The Byrds’ creative choices on “Mr. Tambourine Man” were pivotal.

But they were significant to the trajectory of Dylan’s career, too. During his 2013 interview, Crosby recalled Dylan coming to the studio to hear the Byrds’ version of his song. “You could see it click in his head,” Crosby said. “He knew right then what he was going to do. He knew what was going to happen…he went out and found the Band and started playing electric music, because he knew at that moment that his stuff could be played that way, and he liked it.”

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