Not only did Dylan usefully revive old folk tunes, which has been done all through the ages, but he usually improved the lyrics considerably, in that he modernized them, while keeping them strikingly poetic. The song "Farewell" is just one of numerous examples.

The song "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a spin-off from the old folksong "Lord Randall", but is in fact a far more significant song in theme and scope than "Lord Randall". "Lord Randall" is a good song. "Hard Rain" is a work of genius. Traditionalists of today may not accept that, but traditionalists of tomorrow will. And so it goes...

Why should something be deemed more valuable (because it happened 3 centuries ago) than something else that happened last week or twenty years ago? Especially when the thing that happened last week is more relevant in every way to life as it exists now?

My, my, what a pretentious bunch we find jealously guarding the relics of the past, while booing the brilliance of the present. Remember Newport in 1965?

"He not busy being born is busy dying." - Bob Dylan