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 82
... pitch while organ chords ascend . ) As in conversation , the raised pitch asks a ques- tion ; here it also seems challenging or threatening . This phrase sets up the " you " that the narrator will attack throughout the song ; its diph ...
... pitch while organ chords ascend . ) As in conversation , the raised pitch asks a ques- tion ; here it also seems challenging or threatening . This phrase sets up the " you " that the narrator will attack throughout the song ; its diph ...
Page 101
... pitch , and loud . His voice drops in pitch , arclike , on the last syllable , " known " ; then he repeats this pitch drop for " stone . " His vocal inflections make the lines hostile and aggressive . But the lines seem arbitrarily ...
... pitch , and loud . His voice drops in pitch , arclike , on the last syllable , " known " ; then he repeats this pitch drop for " stone . " His vocal inflections make the lines hostile and aggressive . But the lines seem arbitrarily ...
Page 110
... pitch higher than any before , until its last sung word , which climbs yet another pitch . The G end rhymes thus occur on a higher pitch than anything in the song except for the first “ No ” in the refrain : after " me , Babe " drops a ...
... pitch higher than any before , until its last sung word , which climbs yet another pitch . The G end rhymes thus occur on a higher pitch than anything in the song except for the first “ No ” in the refrain : after " me , Babe " drops a ...
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Common terms and phrases
ABCB aesthetic ain't Al Kooper album artistic audience aural Babe Baby Ballad bass Beatles Blonde on Blonde Bob Dylan chord change couplet culture drums Dylan's songs Dylan's voice effect electric guitar emotional feel female Ferry's Folklore four fourth stanza Freewheelin Hard Rain hard rain's a-gonna harmonica 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 narrator narrator's oral organ chords outtake Oxford Town performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic rain's a-gonna fall recorded refrain released Retrospective rhyme word riff rock rock music 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 tion verse woman Woody Guthrie words and music York