The basic melody of Masters of War was taken

from the old English folk song "Nottamun Town." Jackie Washington, a folk singer in the early and mid 1960s claimed:

"I found a song of Jean Ritchie's called 'Nottamun Town.' It's sung in a minor key against a major, like a lot of these mountain songs. It sounds nice, but I just couldn't do it, so I changed the tune to minor and made sort of a drone sound with the guitar. Dylan loved this. I was playing at Gerde's and he would come in every night and ask me to sing it. He went over to Vanguard, and Maynard gave him a copy of my record. The next time I heard my tune -- which was my tune -- it was 'Masters of War.'"