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 19
... third - stanza line begins , “ I heard . " But the scenes remain visual as well as aural . Stanza by stanza the song progresses from the nar- rator's continous movement at first , to the set scenes he observes in the second stanza , to ...
... third - stanza line begins , “ I heard . " But the scenes remain visual as well as aural . Stanza by stanza the song progresses from the nar- rator's continous movement at first , to the set scenes he observes in the second stanza , to ...
Page 21
... third stanza . After its first line a listener hears , as does the narrator , the sound of thunder . After the second line she hears surf ; after the third , a drumroll ; next , the female backup group whispering . Then , in the single ...
... third stanza . After its first line a listener hears , as does the narrator , the sound of thunder . After the second line she hears surf ; after the third , a drumroll ; next , the female backup group whispering . Then , in the single ...
Page 89
... third stanza's AB couplet , Miss Lonely can again be visual- ized : no longer in a dorm room but rather at a circus , her own private one with " all the clowns that you have commissioned " ( as elsewhere on this album- " Queen Jane ...
... third stanza's AB couplet , Miss Lonely can again be visual- ized : no longer in a dorm room but rather at a circus , her own private one with " all the clowns that you have commissioned " ( as elsewhere on this album- " Queen Jane ...
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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