Actually, "Bob Dylan's Dream" is more a case of using the form and tune, but not the content, of "Lady Franklin's Lament." Dylan uses the setup verse about the dream, but then veers into his own story. I don't know what category this falls in -- parody, I suppose, since it's more than just borrowing the tune, it's borrowing some lines of actual text, but it isn't reworking a traditional song. "Don't Think Twice" is closer to reworking the whole traditional song -- more of the original is kept within the new song.

Now that I think of it, there's a lot of that sort of thing that happens in folk-song-writing circles. I have done it myself, using more than just the tune from a traditional song. I think I posted a version of "Son of Davy" here, which uses several versions of "Gypsy Davy" as a template to tell a new story. I even sing it to my favorite "Gypsy Davy" tune, "Clayton Boone," but it fits several other traditional tunes, too.

Dylan didn't exactly not cite where the structure of some of those songs came from, though he didn't exactly cite them, either. If you have a new song on an old structure, do you call it the old song ("new words and music by Songer Singwriter")? No, if it's honestly a new song, you call it the new song, and, if asked, admit that you got the structure from an old one.

I don't know if very many people asked Dylan, in those days, where he started a particular song. I know he didn't go around telling folks, though. I suppose he felt if no one asked, it wasn't his job to tell them he got X song from Paul Clayton, or Y song from Hobart Smith. He knew his tradition, and used it, but it wasn't important to him to make those connections obvious, especially when he was working on "Bob Dylan's Legend."

I probably wouldn't, either.

Bob Clayton

("Bob Clayton's Legend" is not yet in your music stores, and may never be, alas.)