There are some distinct similarities between "Kathy's Song" and "Lord Franklin" (Carthy's version). The melody is a variant of "Franklin," and it also has nearly the same chord progression. But the point I was making is that "Kathy's Song" resembles "Lord Franklin" about as closely as "Boots of Spanish Leather" resembles "Scarborough Fair." Which is to say, not an awful lot.

Scorpio: I think you may have your lords confused. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" very loosely (EXTREMELY loosely) uses "Lord Randall" as a structural base, and "Bob Dylan's Dream" comes directly and unequivocally from "Lord Franklin," in what I think was a brilliant rewrite on Dylan's part--he preserves the tone of the song, but americanizes it in virtually every way and changes the theme to a more universal feeling of loss.

"Boots" makes the most sense to me as a response to "10,000 Miles"; still, Fossil's right about the ultimate validity of interpretations. I'm pretty sure Spanish leather has a distinct association with betrayal, just because of other references to it that I've seen, like "Gypsy Davy/Seven Yellow Gypsies/Etc." but in my opinion, a song is whatever you get from it.