Bob Dylan’s original handwritten lyrics for “The Times They Are A-Changin’’ were placed in a memorabilia auction with a starting price of $2.2 million.

His words for “Subterranean Homesick Blues” were also offered at $1.2 million while “Lay, Lady, Lay” opened at $650,000. Auctioneers Moments In Time provided pictures of each item, noting that authenticity was “guaranteed without time limitations, for full refund of purchase price.���

“History is constantly being made all around us,” a statement read. “Possessing these items gives one a sense of pride. With these manuscripts you can fall into the moment of their creation as they are truly a ‘moment in time’.”

TMZ reported: “Bob's handwritten lyrics were acquired from a collector who bought them from the singer's manager years ago, and you can see Bob's mind at work just by looking at the pages -- there are tons of edits, scribbles, notes and even doodles! Bob won a Nobel Prize for literature, but it's still crazy to see how much his artistry is worth.”

Bob Dylan - ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’

Dylan recorded “The Times They Are A-Changin;” in 1963 and it appeared on his album of the same name the following year. He said of the song: “I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short, concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. This is definitely a song with a purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and who I wanted to say it to.” While his motivation came from the civil rights activism of the time, the song acquired a new meaning after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy a month after he’d first performed it.

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