Too much to detail but one example is 'Blowin in the Wind' became a civil rights anthem which is appropriate because its origin:
Pete Seeger first identified the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" as an adaptation of the old African-American spiritual "No More Auction Block/We Shall Overcome". According to Alan Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America, the song was sung by former slaves who fled to Nova Scotia after Britain abolished slavery in 1833. In 1978, Dylan acknowledged the source when he told journalist Marc Rowland: "'Blowin' in the Wind' has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called 'No More Auction Block' – that's a spiritual and 'Blowin' in the Wind' follows the same feeling."
Dylan channels this stuff. He listens to everything and internalizes it so completely that it comes back out in a different way every time he performs a song. Lots of Dylan songs have origins and influences in Black music. Dylan has no problem acknowledging this dynamic. So I think the write up could have examined this, eg they note songs went from Dylan to black artists but not that some of those songs/tunes went from black artists to Dylan back to black artists.
Dylan loves the tension of staying on a chord or a progression without resolving it ( eg "Early Roman Kings" ). 'Auction Block' has a similar dynamic in that you can repeat the somewhat short verse pattern as many times as you want and the tension just builds. You can say as much as you have to say and then finally give the resolution, "...the answer my friend is blowin in the wind".
This drummer's stories about being in Dylan's band are really interesting:
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