chaos. Woody Guthrie In 1959, an 11-year-old African American boy calling himself Woody Guthrie is freighthopping through the Midwestern United States. Carrying a guitar in a case bearing the slogan "this machine kills fascists", he plays blues music and sings about topics such as trade unionism. One African American woman advises him to sing about the issues of his own time instead. Woody is attacked by hobos and nearly drowns, but is rescued by a white couple who take him in. They are impressed with his musical talents, but Woody runs off when they receive a telephone call from a juvenile corrections center in Minnesota telling them he is an escaped fugitive. Upon learning that the real Woody Guthrie is deathly ill, Dylan travels to New Jersey to visit Guthrie in the hospital. Jack Rollins/Father John The career of folk musician Jack Rollins is framed as a documentary film, told by interviewees including folk singer Alice Fabian. Jack becomes a star of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s, praised by fans for his protest songs. He signs to Columbia Records, but in 1963, just as the Vietnam War is escalating, he stops singing protest songs and turns away from folk music, believing that neither affects real social or political change. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jack gets drunk at a ceremony where he is receiving an award from a civil rights organization. Remarking in his acceptance speech that he saw something of himself in Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, he is booed and derided by the audience. He goes into hiding, and in 1974 enters a bible study course in Stockton, California, and emerges a born again Christian, denouncing his past and becoming an ordained minister performing gospel music under the name "Father John". Robbie Clark Robbie Clark is a 22-year-old actor who plays Jack Rollins in the 1965 biographical film Grain of Sand. During filming in Greenwich Village in January 1964, he falls in love with French artist Claire, and they soon marry. Grain of Sand is a hit and Robbie becomes a star, but their relationship is strained and Claire observes Robbie flirting with other women. She is particularly offended when, during an argument in 1968 over whether the evils of the world can be changed, he opines that women can never be poets. Eventually Robbie moves out of their house, then goes