Dylan was inspired to write his own songs by music not remotely resembling his own. The songs of others gave him courage. The work he then created changed music forever.

Wild, uninhibited art inspires me. And many artists. In his memoir he talks about the impact the song “Pirate Jenny,” from the The Threepenny Opera, had oh him. 

The song, he said, made him feel as if he “hadn’t slept or tasted food for about thirty hours. I was so into it. . .  This was a wild song. Big medicine in the lyrics. Heavy action spread out. Each phrase comes at you from a ten-foot drop, scuttles across the road and then another one comes like a punch on the chin. . . This heavy song was a new stimulant for my senses, indeed very much like a folk song but a folk song from a different gallon jug in a different backyard. . .

-     Bob Dylan, Chronicles One