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 83
... rhyme meter , in the CB couplet he immediately deviates from it . The musical four beats go on , but the poetic meter forces together five strong stresses : " call , say beware doll . " Four words precisely rhyme — call / doll / fall ...
... rhyme meter , in the CB couplet he immediately deviates from it . The musical four beats go on , but the poetic meter forces together five strong stresses : " call , say beware doll . " Four words precisely rhyme — call / doll / fall ...
Page 92
... word ) than is the entangled mass of emotions with which each listener wonders who she is and what she's doing here . In performance , Dylan conveys the skewed nursery - rhyme meter of this " got it made " line . For the next couplet ...
... word ) than is the entangled mass of emotions with which each listener wonders who she is and what she's doing here . In performance , Dylan conveys the skewed nursery - rhyme meter of this " got it made " line . For the next couplet ...
Page 132
... rhyme words that now occur with increasing frequency . These separate guitar tones merge and swell behind " The pump ... word sound has far more effect than word sense . And then electric guitar and harmonica finish the song in harmony ...
... rhyme words that now occur with increasing frequency . These separate guitar tones merge and swell behind " The pump ... word sound has far more effect than word sense . And then electric guitar and harmonica finish the song in harmony ...
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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