About Bob Dylan and his sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/arts/music/14dyla.html?ex=1158379200&en=389276ea528693bd&ei=5 087%0A

'“More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours,” the 65-year-old Mr. Dylan sings..'

Oh, Bob..more frailer?..dear, dear.

Regards, Maz

I've been listening to all the early Bob Dylan a lot lately, and it isn't anything new, one might say: many of the early songs have melodies "appropriated" from traditional folk songs.

Too bad there wasn't a BMI or ASCAP back in the 1700s, no?

Well, as the saying goes, good poets steal; great poets shag you as well.
David

Every few years I give in to temptation and buy the currently new Dylan album, try to listen to it, and yell, "Screwed again!" This is the man who created Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks... even Infidels and Empire Burlesque!
Richard

Creative re-cycling, I call it.

And applaud it.

I agree with V.W. - “all literature is one mind.”

If writers like Willy S. can rip off nearly every plot he used, and re-cycle passages from Golding's Ovid, etc., why can't Bobby do it too?

It's not "what" but "how".

And apart from some obvious heart-grippers I was too busy for Dylan when he was Dylanning.

How does Dylan's case differ from Leonard Cohen's case?
On Musings appears a Cohen piece clearly derived from a medieval Jewish prayer recited every Yom Kippur . Not surprising: Cohen was raised very strongly connected to Jewish community, liturgy and his roots. The medieval piece is, as Daniel pointed out, strongly connected to Ecclesiastes (CH.3). Those ideas no doubt appear in earlier works too. Do we know that Timrod hasn't reworked commonly used phrases of his time? Maybe I just haven't looked well enough, but I never saw Cohen specifically acknowledge sources -- in fact, many writers/artists allude to / show influences of... etc -- what is the difference here?

bugger! where are they when you need the pile reworked?

I find this story silly. What Dylan "stole" ar about six two-word phrases that weren't original when Timrod wrote them. He added them to hundreds and hundreds of his own words. If any of us were that famous, an exegesis could be made to prove that we "stole" from others as well.

Of course the folk tradition permits writers to use certain community melodies, as it were, that are part of the canon. It's almost like a form. I don't steal from others who wrote sonnets before me if I choose to write a sonnet.

It's worth pointing out that many of Dylan's best melodies are entirely original, of course. I've not yet had a chance with the new album, but Time Out Of Mind was a stunning work of genius, as good as his best work. To pick just one personal favorite, "Trying To Get To Heaven" is breathtaking and moving both musically and lyrically.