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 80
... seems to descend on each line before , but is staying on one pitch while organ chords ascend . ) As in conversation , the raised pitch asks a question ; here it also seems challenging or threatening . This phrase sets up the " you ...
... seems to descend on each line before , but is staying on one pitch while organ chords ascend . ) As in conversation , the raised pitch asks a question ; here it also seems challenging or threatening . This phrase sets up the " you ...
Page 109
... seem precarious ; the ground , farther from the narrator's bedroom , seems safe and solid . He again says , " I'm not the one you want , Babe , " leaving her the stronger of the verb pair want / need . Instead of repeating his denial ...
... seem precarious ; the ground , farther from the narrator's bedroom , seems safe and solid . He again says , " I'm not the one you want , Babe , " leaving her the stronger of the verb pair want / need . Instead of repeating his denial ...
Page 117
... seems that more than a song has proven its worth here : this closing processional seems the elated wedding vows of organ and drum , of European religious ritual music and African religious ritual music , of white and black culture ...
... seems that more than a song has proven its worth here : this closing processional seems the elated wedding vows of organ and drum , of European religious ritual music and African religious ritual music , of white and black culture ...
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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