Mark, but the "combination" is also nothing extraordinary. There are only four examples of the "borrowings" that I have read about, and each of them is from a different Dylan song. It's not as if there were twenty or thirty of them, or they clustered in an unlikely way. Plus, as I think I've shown, three of the four aren't even genuine "borrowings." Did Timrod "borrow" the phrase "temporary death" from Sheridan? Did Hawthorne? It's not as if any particular writer invented these words. If Dylan had used much longer phrases, I could see the criticism, but generally one doesn't "steal" from another writer simply by using words that the other writer also used, or even two-word combinations. I guess I just don't get the pseudo-controversy here.
About the songs, I haven't had a chance yet to sit down and give them a careful listen, but people I know have told me the album's quite good and I hope I'll soon be in a position to agree. I'm certainly predisposed.
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