Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob DylanBob Dylan is not a poet. He is a singer-songwriter, a performing artist. The unit of his art, as collected and documented by his intended audience, is the live performance. Right now, no existing technological tool can give researchers ready access to his entire corpus of work. Revised from the author's Ph.D. dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1978) and again from its first edition (Indiana UP, 1982), Performed Literature develops a methodology for close analysis of verbal art that is heard, not seen, using as comparative examples 24 performances of 11 songs by Bob Dylan. The second edition adds a preface, two major appendices and one minor one, and a detailed index. |
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Page 46
... breaks between stanzas . The drums , which one would expect to carry the beat , do so unobtrusively , noticeable ... breaks . These breaks vary in length from four to twenty measures . The longest one follows the ninth stanza : it ...
... breaks between stanzas . The drums , which one would expect to carry the beat , do so unobtrusively , noticeable ... breaks . These breaks vary in length from four to twenty measures . The longest one follows the ninth stanza : it ...
Page 63
... breaks . And the last line is phrased " But she breaks just ... like a little ... girl " : the " just " cushions the male " breaks " and with its female uh vowel anticipates the first occurrence of the word that is the 1966 narrator's ...
... breaks . And the last line is phrased " But she breaks just ... like a little ... girl " : the " just " cushions the male " breaks " and with its female uh vowel anticipates the first occurrence of the word that is the 1966 narrator's ...
Page 64
... breaks , " he breaks the line sharply . As in the " fallen " line , his onomatopoetic phrasing helps express the narrator's strength and control over language — in this case , his gleefully sadistic breaking of a little guh- hu - hu ...
... breaks , " he breaks the line sharply . As in the " fallen " line , his onomatopoetic phrasing helps express the narrator's strength and control over language — in this case , his gleefully sadistic breaking of a little guh- hu - hu ...
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Common terms and phrases
ABCB aesthetic ain't Al Kooper album artistic audience aural Babe Baby Ballad bass Beatles becomes Blonde on Blonde Bob Dylan chord change concert version couplet culture drums Dylan's songs Dylan's voice effect electric guitar emotional feel female Ferry's Folklore four fourth stanza Freewheelin Hard Rain harmonica Highway 61 Highway 61 Revisited Idiot Wind Idiot wind Blowing imagery imitate instrumental break Isis John Wesley Harding listener listener's melody meter Miss Lonely musical beat musicians narrative narrator narrator's Newport 65 oral organ chords outtake Oxford Town performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic recorded refrain released rhyme word riff rock Rolling Stone Sad-Eyed Lady scene second stanza Shelter shift singers sings someone song's sound stanza studio version Subterranean Homesick Blues suggests sung lines sweet lady syllables tambourine tape textual third stanza throughout the song Univ unresolved verse vowel woman Woody Guthrie words and music York