Bob Dylan got his songs from here...

(I am a Bob fan, I love that his roots wind back into weird old americana from blues and country, to folk and the plain odd...)

Open the Door Richard - as opposed to open the door Homer (on the basement tapes)

Go 'way from My Window - its clearly a source for Don't think twice...

hit me....

Spookily enough, Mr G A Dewar just mentioned 'The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie' on the 'novel' thread. A traditional song from Aberdeenshire, and clearly the origin of Dylan's 'Pretty Peggy O'. Just have a listen:'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Y37E9rqqg

oh - didn't know that one....it is spooky...the interconnectedness of everything (and very dylan)

The Bonnie Lass of Fyvie (McColls version) - Pretty Peggy-O

Lost Highway - Hank starts "I'm a rolling stone, all alone and lost" and Muddy Waters knows exactly how that feels Rolling Stone

And talking of McColl, I've always thought 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' sounds like 'Dirty Old Town'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wj7xZf8xm8

And what about 'God On Our Side' sounding like 'The Patriot Game'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcj48HvL3us

Wasn't there a bit of a spat with Dominic Behan over that one?

hi Babyshambler - its the identical tune....Dylan was friendly with the Clancy brothers in New York...

The Patriot Game vs With God On Our Side - the themes content wise are related too....what a dude, he just uses sources so well.

Down On Penny's Farm - not Maggies

Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone) - don't think twice (again)

The Parting Glass - restless farewell in Bob world

Hi Mistah Kurtz

Bob Dylan once described Liam Clancy, as the greatest ballad singer he had ever heard. They obviously spent a lot of time together in Greenwich Village. One of the great things about Bob Dylan is that, he never forgot his roots.

absolutely he grew new branches on the tree of song....

Too Much Monkey Business - Chuck said - too many tasks, wipe the window, check the tyres, check the dollar bill gas,

Dylan adds - get born.short pants, learn to dance - too much monkey business'd give anyone the subterranean homesick blues

Baby Blue - its all over now

Automobile Blues - ideal car if you're wearing a leopard skin pill box hat

The Pony Blues - dylan got a new pony - both songs concern the battle between sanctity and sex

On The Road [excerpt] (Album Version)

Two Good Men (Sacco and Vanzetti)

the Beat writers, along with the folkies - Woody Guthrie, Pete Seegar and C&W giants like Hank Williams were the foundations of his style, fascinating on his radio shows to hear him go back to these..
.Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour
Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour: The Best Of The Third Series etc etc

I loved his 'Theme Time Radio Hour' program, pity it ended when it did. We heard music there, we would never have heard anywhere else, and the chat and information between songs was always very entertaining.

fully agree it was a brilliant and educational, funny and deep stuff - who'd have thought he had it in him...wish it was all available in a big fat box set..

It would be a very fat box indeed! 100 shows. No doubt it will be done, hopefully sometime soon, but at what price?

modern times - the whole album sparkled with references - heres a bit from wikileakapedia

"Thunder on the Mountain" has a second verse based on the song "Ma Rainey" by Memphis Minnie. Dylan cuts and shuffles Memphis Minnie's lyrics substituting Alicia Keys and Hell's Kitchen for Ma Rainey and her Georgia birthplace. The reference to Keys was listed by Rolling Stone as among the "ten weirdest shoutouts" in song.[3] The guitar licks and riffs are typical of Chuck Berry's famous records, with the melody sounding closest to "Let It Rock."[4]
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" is a blues standard first recorded and possibly written by the bluesman Hambone Willie Newbern. An arrangement very similar to Dylan's but with different lyrics was a hit for Muddy Waters, who is also credited with writing the song. Except for the first verse, all the lyrics in Dylan's version are original.
"When the Deal Goes Down" is based on the melody of "Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)", a signature-song for Bing Crosby.[5]
"Someday Baby" is based on an old standard that can be traced back to "Worried Life Blues", recorded by Sleepy John Estes, and made famous in versions by Lightnin' Hopkins and Muddy Waters. It is sometimes referred to as "Trouble No More", and often credited to Muddy Waters.
The chorus of "Working Man's Blues" features the line, "Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind, bring me my boots and shoes." The unusual phrasing appears to have been borrowed from cool jazz singer June Christy's 1946 song "June's Blues", which contains the words, "Meet me in the bottom, bring me my boots and shoes". Dylan has showed an affinity for Christy's music, and played a number of her songs throughout the course of his Theme Time Radio Hour XM program.[6] The line also appears as "Meet me in the bottom, bring me my running shoes", in the Willie Dixon song "Down in the Bottom" (it itself an adaptation of "Rollin' and Tumblin'"), recorded by Howlin' Wolf. A similar variant appears in Big Joe Williams's song "Meet Me Around the Corner" ("Meet me around the corner, bring me my boots and shoes").
"Beyond the Horizon" is based around the song "Red Sails in the Sunset," written by Jimmy Kennedy and Hugh Williams in 1935 using its melody and basic structure.
"Nettie Moore" takes its title, and some of its chorus, from an 1857 composition "Gentle Nettie Moore" by Marshall Pike and James Lord Pierpont, the composer of "Jingle Bells", though Dylan's melody and lyrics are otherwise unrecognizable, although the song shares a rhyme with "Moonshiner", a traditional folk song that Dylan recorded in 1963: "They say whiskey will kill ya, but I don't think it will" vs. "If whiskey don't kill me, I don't know what will."
"The Levee's Gonna Break" is based on "When the Levee Breaks" by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. It has been previously adapted by rock acts such as Led Zeppelin. The song has also been in the public domain since 2004.
"Ain't Talkin'" derives its chorus from the more up-tempo "Highway of Regret" by The Stanley Brothers. The lyrics of the first verse seem to be derived from the first verse of "As I Roved Out", a traditional Irish song.
[edit]Additional sources
Two other sources of the album's lyrics were cited in the latter half of 2006. In September, The New York Times ran an article exploring similarities between some of the lyrics in Modern Times and the work of 19th century poet Henry Timrod. Albuquerque disc jockey Scott Warmuth is credited as the first to discover at least ten substantial lines and phrases that can be clearly traced to the Civil War poet across several songs. Dylan and Sony have declined to comment on the matter, and Timrod's name is nowhere to be found on the liner notes.[7][8][9] Robert Polito of the Poetry Foundation wrote a detailed defense of Dylan's usage of old lines in creating new work, saying that calls of plagiarism confuse "art with a term paper".[10]

A great album. The one thing that never bothered Bob Dylan was Critics. All down the years he just did what he wanted regardless of critics or fans for that matter. A prime example of course is back in 1965, when he did his first electric set,
and we all know the rest. Bob Dylan was always ahead of the posse, but was never afraid to go back either.

Here's one you may not know, Mistah. Another beautiful old song from the north east of Scotland, called 'Farewell to Tarwathie'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYcAeZJhrEI

Don't need to tell you what Dylan made of that one.

(By the way, the singer is Isla St Clair, who was a traditional singer before she became Larry Grayson's sidekick on The Generation Game.)

Oh, and 'Girl From the North Country' and 'Scarborough Fair'.

wow - knew the last two but not the first - will go and listen...Farewell To Tarwathie - judy collins version
Farewell To Tarwathie - liam clancy.....thanks for this - very interesting

Tradition Ballad from the Child Collection 'Lord Randall'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UooMssjjci0

Both the tune and the structure of the story inspired 'Hard Rain's Gonna Fall'.