I had always thought (not that my opinion matters, but..) that it was always clear that he was consciously emulating Woody, who was at the same time continuing in the tradition of Joe Hill--at the same time though(and, more or less, in the same space as Dylan), Kerouac and Ginsburg were championing the cause of spontaneous writing--

While we are on the point, I don't like the use of the word "borrowing", since it is presumes that the melody really belongs somewhere else--our broadside collectors will vouch for the fact that it had been common practice to write topical songs to existing melodies practically since the introduction of cheap printing--, Ira Gershwin included Martin Luther in his list of great lyricists, because he had written all those great hymns to existing melodies--