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 48
... begins as the man , after Isis marries and then leaves him , strikes out into a wilderness where he can tell wrong from right and dark from light . “ I cut off my hair , " he begins . Hairstyle indicates social status in almost every ...
... begins as the man , after Isis marries and then leaves him , strikes out into a wilderness where he can tell wrong from right and dark from light . “ I cut off my hair , " he begins . Hairstyle indicates social status in almost every ...
Page 98
... begins . In the other two concert versions , the distinctive opening instrumentation gathers audience attention with each descending set of pitches , until " Once upon a time " begins at a low point in the music . In Newport '65 , the ...
... begins . In the other two concert versions , the distinctive opening instrumentation gathers audience attention with each descending set of pitches , until " Once upon a time " begins at a low point in the music . In Newport '65 , the ...
Page 115
... begins , but not yet loud or conspicuously offbeat . A brief organ upbeat leads into the first DEFE segment . The " plonk " effect starts in , apparently ready to replace the tambourine in marking measures . But after one line the ...
... begins , but not yet loud or conspicuously offbeat . A brief organ upbeat leads into the first DEFE segment . The " plonk " effect starts in , apparently ready to replace the tambourine in marking measures . But after one line the ...
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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 oral organ chords outtake Oxford Town patterns performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic recorded refrain released rhyme word riff rock Rolling Stone Sad-Eyed Lady scene second stanza sexual 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 Woody Guthrie words and music York