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 55
... voice to let the musical space fill mostly with that version's familiar piano arpeggio . In 1974 , Dylan makes a four- and then a three - syllable descent on " girl . ” In the last refrain he plays with the word even more , like a cat ...
... voice to let the musical space fill mostly with that version's familiar piano arpeggio . In 1974 , Dylan makes a four- and then a three - syllable descent on " girl . ” In the last refrain he plays with the word even more , like a cat ...
Page 111
... voice defies the guitar just enough to carry the listener along with the voice . Each sung line is a small adventure : the voice acts just a little differently from what musical regularity would lead the listener to expect . Furthermore ...
... voice defies the guitar just enough to carry the listener along with the voice . Each sung line is a small adventure : the voice acts just a little differently from what musical regularity would lead the listener to expect . Furthermore ...
Page 118
... voice , and both their descents stand in sharp contrast to the keyboard riff that has just risen in anticipation after " want , Babe . " This emphatic " down " is reversed by the next segment , DEFE , during which voice and guitar bound ...
... voice , and both their descents stand in sharp contrast to the keyboard riff that has just risen in anticipation after " want , Babe . " This emphatic " down " is reversed by the next segment , DEFE , during which voice and guitar bound ...
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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