By the time Bob Dylan first arrived at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, folk songs had been peppering the pop charts for years. The Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley,” a 19th Century murder-ballad-turned-into-a-sing-along, went No. 1 in 1958. Peter, Paul & Mary had a Top 10 single with Pete Seeger’s “If I had a Hammer” in ’62. And Trini Lopez took a souped-up version of Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer” to No. 3 in 1963.

If I had to distill Bob Dylan’s “message” to a single sentence, it would be this: Think for yourself. His songs could be characterized as an instructional manual in critical thinking, except he’d cringe at the idea that he is anybody’s teacher, let alone their savior, as he was once called. His songs question authority, confront institutional thinking with skepticism, mock the all-knowing. They punch up, in the voice of a poet who sounds like a dirt farmer.

Bob Dylan’s evolution as a singer and songwriter, as traced through the songs he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, ’64 and ’65.

In 1978, Bob Dylan was a mess. His divorce from Sara Lowndes had been finalized, followed by a bitter custody battle. His four-hour film “Renaldo & Clara,” shot during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, had opened (and quickly closed) to savage reviews, and the “Street Legal” album didn’t fare much better. The big band — heavy on horns and background singers — that he had taken on the road for an outing often dubbed “the alimony tour” was being dismissed as a tacky sell-out. 

Here are some of the songs that inspired or defined the ‘60s folk revival