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. |
From inside the book
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Page 33
The harmonica plays for four measures at the song's opening, after the four-
measure instrumental introduction and before the words; then it does not
reappear until after all five sung stanzas. There, while the rest of the band plays
through ...
The harmonica plays for four measures at the song's opening, after the four-
measure instrumental introduction and before the words; then it does not
reappear until after all five sung stanzas. There, while the rest of the band plays
through ...
Page 45
Besides the usual bass, other guitars, drums, and piano, musicians play violin,
mandolin, bells, congas, and a bellzouki (presumably invented by Vincent Bell,
who plays it). Dylan shares vocals on Desire with two men and two women well ...
Besides the usual bass, other guitars, drums, and piano, musicians play violin,
mandolin, bells, congas, and a bellzouki (presumably invented by Vincent Bell,
who plays it). Dylan shares vocals on Desire with two men and two women well ...
Page 115
Alone and dignified, it plays a chord twice, then takes a brief step upward to play
a higher chord twice. It descends three solemn steps, then, but is interrupted by
two sharp drumbeats and then Ferry's slow, deliberate, carefully articulating voice
...
Alone and dignified, it plays a chord twice, then takes a brief step upward to play
a higher chord twice. It descends three solemn steps, then, but is interrupted by
two sharp drumbeats and then Ferry's slow, deliberate, carefully articulating voice
...
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Common terms and phrases
ABCB aesthetic ain't 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 four fourth stanza Freewheelin Hard Rain harmonica Highway 61 Highway 61 Revisited Idiot Wind Idiot wind Blowing imagery imitate instrumental break Isis Joan Baez John Wesley Harding listener listener's melody meter Miss Lonely musical beat musicians narrative narrator narrator's Newport 65 organ chords outtake Oxford Town patterns performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic rain's a-gonna fall 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 third stanza throughout the song unresolved verse vowel woman Woody Guthrie words and music
Bibliographic information
| Title | Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob Dylan G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series |
| Authors | Betsy Bowden, Bob Dylan |
| Edition | 2, illustrated |
| Publisher | University Press of America, 2001 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | 11 May 2010 |
| ISBN | 0761819479, 9780761819479 |
| Length | 263 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / General Music / Instruction & Study / Songwriting |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |