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 20
... Ferry's narrator instead mocks the executioner and the ocean : Ferry's closing " it's a ha - ha - ha- ha - ha - ha - ha hard " acts as culmination of the vocal tricks that through- out his 1973 performance suggest triumphant laughter ...
... Ferry's narrator instead mocks the executioner and the ocean : Ferry's closing " it's a ha - ha - ha- ha - ha - ha - ha hard " acts as culmination of the vocal tricks that through- out his 1973 performance suggest triumphant laughter ...
Page 22
... Ferry thus closes with the narrator's self - confident control over language , not his drowning . The two opening lines of the song are likewise set apart by Ferry's voice and also by instrumentation . The 1973 version opens with only ...
... Ferry thus closes with the narrator's self - confident control over language , not his drowning . The two opening lines of the song are likewise set apart by Ferry's voice and also by instrumentation . The 1973 version opens with only ...
Page 118
... Ferry's 1974 studio performance : its beat forms the white canvas behind a Jackson Pollock of sound run riot - but controlled riot . The tempo is very slow , M.M .. = 92-96 . Remarkably various instruments appear and disap- pear ...
... Ferry's 1974 studio performance : its beat forms the white canvas behind a Jackson Pollock of sound run riot - but controlled riot . The tempo is very slow , M.M .. = 92-96 . Remarkably various instruments appear and disap- pear ...
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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 Look out kid 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 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