Don,

I think Jean Ritchie and Woody Guthrie knew something about ballads.

As a result, the wrote some songs that could possibly go into the ballad lexicon.

they say the same about Dylan but I'm not sure here. Dylan to me appears to have written songs that would be received by those in the "folk scare" community because he reflects
their political mindset at the time. Dylan, himself, has disowned the value of his song's
"political" content. This means to me, he wrote because he thought these songs would have commercial value. The question I have is that if this is true, did the motive taint the
intent of the song?