Not bad for a 21 year old. It is so cinematic and all enveloping like a journey thru songs from previous generations and yet so new that when Ginsberg heard it he apparently had to sit down and admit that the man bringing him to tears had picked up a guantlet that he had no business wearing. Then factor in the form and the deep knowledge of songs like it that preceded it in folk music for a hundred years + before, and then the ability of a young Dylan to be much more than a Woody lite and the restraint with which he sings words like

'I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.'