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 85
... refrains of the Highway 61 version her isolation is specified by the added line , “ To be on your own . " In this first refrain , however , the narrator makes no attempt to help her define her feelings : she is simply without a home ...
... refrains of the Highway 61 version her isolation is specified by the added line , “ To be on your own . " In this first refrain , however , the narrator makes no attempt to help her define her feelings : she is simply without a home ...
Page 111
... refrain . " Babe " appears outside the refrains too , linked by assonance with the repeated “ You say ” of D lines and “ ain't " of refrains . Squished between “ ain't ” and “ Babe , " in every line of refrain , is the narrator's " me ...
... refrain . " Babe " appears outside the refrains too , linked by assonance with the repeated “ You say ” of D lines and “ ain't " of refrains . Squished between “ ain't ” and “ Babe , " in every line of refrain , is the narrator's " me ...
Page 143
... refrain develops the images of " idiot ” and " blowing " by incremental repetition . Until the closing refrain , the first and last four refrain lines stay the same , only the middle refrain couplet changing its images of emptiness ...
... refrain develops the images of " idiot ” and " blowing " by incremental repetition . Until the closing refrain , the first and last four refrain lines stay the same , only the middle refrain couplet changing its images of emptiness ...
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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 couplet culture drums Dylan's songs Dylan's voice effect electric guitar emotional feel female Ferry's Folklore four fourth stanza Freewheelin give you shelter Hard Rain hard rain's a-gonna harmonica Highway 61 Revisited Idiot Wind Idiot wind Blowing imagery imitate inflections 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 shift sings someone song's sound stanza studio version Subterranean Homesick Blues suggests sung lines sweet lady syllables tape textual third stanza tion verse vocal woman Woody Guthrie words and music York