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That’s pretty heady; that’s pretty good. There were few or
none who emerged from that scene who ever looked back
with regret. It was quite a moment.
Dylan was drinking it all in, soaking it all up. His friend
from the early days, the folksinger Dave Van Ronk, recalled
in No Direction Home (the Martin Scorsese documentary
about Dylan) and on many other occasions that there was
no greater sponge than Dylan. He adopted the stylings of
others, the inflections of blues singers who had gone before.In short order he would be borrowing bits of melody: from
the slave song “No More Auction Block” for “Blowin’ in
the Wind,” from the traditional ballad “Lord Randall” for
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” He stole a friend’s records
because, as he himself admitted to Scorsese much later, he
simply had to have them. Having them was essential. In the
melting pot that was Bob Dylan, all of this, mixed with his
own individual brilliance, produced something truly spe-
cial, if only sometimes likeable.08-35 LIFE_Bob Dylan 2020 Folksinger.indd 19 FINAL 1/13/20 4:16 PM