Mr Tambourine Man!

First it was a Bob Dylan song of turgid countenance in tribute of those arseholes on stage lacking the talent to play an instrument. It might, in fact, be about me, if I ever had enough talent to make it on to the stage. Then the Bobster scandalised the purists, Man!, and went all electric, having seen how the Byrds actually made his music attractive by addition of electric guitars and — well, Bob forgot that part — decent singing on their version of Mr Tambourine Man.

But, hey Messrs Byrds Men, your version doesn't capture the hallucinatory properties of the Summer of Love, Man!. It required the belated intervention of Captain Kirk to offer the hippies the really, properly, authentically freaked-out version of the Dylan song.

This is the full album cut from William Shatner's astonishing (read that as you will) 1968 rendition of the song, which has been eclipsed by the future TJ Hooker's even more astonishing interpretation of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ("the GIRL!!!!!!!! with kaleidoscope eyes")... It begins with a pretty strange prologue titled Theme From Cyrano, which morphs into Mr Tambourine Man via an interlude which sounds like the theme of a particular condescending 1960s children's programme, before the Shat summonses Mr Tambourine in the manner in which you would call a waiter (if you were utterly pompous).

The unforgettable moment comes right at the end. Oh, do listen to it and tell me, or the other Hep Cat, that you will not remember it forever.

William Shatner - Theme From Cyrano/Mr Tambourine Man.mp3 (correct link)
William Shatner - The Transformed Man.mp3