Lord Randall / A hard Rain's a gonna fall

[milo]

"but does anyone else notice the similarity in the opening lines of the lyric?"

Well I guess Wiki did as they cited Dylan's "Hard Rain" as a modern usage of the Lord Randall form. In terms of copying non-copyrighted material, that is perfectly OK in a legal sense. Most would have the sense to note the section in some way as to not do so is a form of legal plagiarism. Of course nothing will happen to you except you will look bad. In Dylan's case, he has written such good music that was not tainted no one really cares. In terms of what Mark said, ballads and folk tunes were constantly changing. Who knows what the original Lord Randall actually sounded like. I've certainly heard many variation of "Shady Grove", and I have heard variations in Jimmy Driftwood tunes and I knew Jimmy Driftwood (Battle of New Orleans, Tennessee Stud). I've had other folk musicians tell me I was singing one of Jimmy's songs wrong, lyrically, because they heard it differently on some album. But that is how it is with folk songs. Hell Gun's and Roses added a completely new verse to Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", not to mention a bunch of other senseless crap, but that is how songs go, especially folk and bluegrass songs, not to mention blues. However today, we have become much more litigious, now it doesn't matter so much who wrote it, but who holds copyright and who holds publishing rights: just like Michael Jackson, or is it Paul McCarthy, holds copyright for "Happy Birthday".
However, in poetry or anything else, no one can copyright form. Such as the idea as repeating the same line at the end of each stanza. That still works fairly well in music if handled the correct way, see Dylan's "It's Not Dark Yet, but it's Getting There". However it is usually a distraction in poetry.

Dale

There were actually a few thousand of these as folk songs before it was formalized as lord randall so I would think it is fair.