Talk:List of Bob Dylan songs based on earlier tunes

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Sketchy?[edit]

I could be wrong, but this whole article seems a little sketchy to me. For one thing, there's a bunch of tunes where the assertion (that it's based on an earlier tune) is not referenced. Secondly, a bunch that are ref'd are ref'd to Mick Wall's book. I don't have a copy of the book, but Mick Wall is (I gather) a heavy-metal expert and not a folk-roots expert; his book is titled When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin so if it treats Dylan at all it'd be pretty peripherally I would think. And indeed all to refs are to one page in the book (page 66) which kind of look like he's rattling off some list without an in-depth treatment. Besides which, books are generally not reliable sources because they're not fact-checked. Finally, I don't know a lot about any of these songs (including Dylan's), but for instance conflating Boots of Spanish Leather with Scarborough Fair seems odd -- the gist of the subject matter is quite different (procuring the boots is far from an impossible task, rather the point (I guess) is... something about settling, you know, for material comforts when one can't get the pledge of love, or something...) and the tunes (I'm only familiar with Simon & Garfunkles version of Scarborough Fair) don't really match at all, so that makes me a little leery of the whole deal. Herostratus (talk) 16:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you in all points. I just quickly found references in print where I could find them, so threw Mick Wall in there. People can find other, more authoritative references.

I'm not a Dylanologist, but I read a lot of people saying (including Dylan himself, I think) that Dylan didn't write his melodies but mainly adapted earlier tunes. See [|here] It struck me as crazy, since so many of his songs like Stuck Inside Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again sound unlike others ever recorded. So I started trying to track them down. It seems like a worthy list, even if some songs shouldn't be on it.Kenmayer (talk) 15:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me the big flaw with this article is that a lot of the original tunes are uncited because there is little other explicit documentation available for the original tune for each of Dylan's songs (of those that are melodically based on older songs), rather than simply for a few of the most well-known cases (there are plenty of sources out there that note that "Scarborough Fair" is the basis for "Girl from the North Country", but not many that highlight the link between "Only a Hobo" and "Only a Miner", even though this is self-evident to anyone with specific knowlege in this area. It might be a good idea to phase this article out, and simply integrate the information relating to each of these songs' original tunes into the articles for each individual song...? Dickjameson (talk) 21:46, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

LOL[edit]

Shouldn't his entire discography be listed in this article? A number of his songs use melodies from old folk songs and/or liberally quote others' lyrics and poetry. Don't get me wrong: I understand that he's a part of the folk tradition, so I'm not trying to slight the man (he's my favorite musician). Perhaps this page could be expanded and renamed something like "List of musical references in Bob Dylan songs"? The Wookieepedian (talk) 01:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go beyond that and make it a list of references to other works in Bob Dylan songs. Dylan's work was inspired by poetry and prose as much as it was by music. (24.4.105.170 (talk) 07:10, 13 August 2016 (UTC))[reply]