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 37
... eyes and Arabian drums , representing all he has to give , seem momentous . The drumbeats make them seem so , as does the poetic meter . These words would move slowly even if spoken , for nearly every syllable requires a strong stress ...
... eyes and Arabian drums , representing all he has to give , seem momentous . The drumbeats make them seem so , as does the poetic meter . These words would move slowly even if spoken , for nearly every syllable requires a strong stress ...
Page 38
... eyes " combine harsh and gentle , metallic and human images . The lady's sad eyes have so influenced the narrator's way of seeing that his own eyes share her oxymoronic , nonrational power . The metaphor also carries the sense of a ware ...
... eyes " combine harsh and gentle , metallic and human images . The lady's sad eyes have so influenced the narrator's way of seeing that his own eyes share her oxymoronic , nonrational power . The metaphor also carries the sense of a ware ...
Page 188
... eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes And your silver cross , and your voice like chimes Oh , who do they think could bury you ? [ Oh , who among them do they think could bury you ? ] With your pockets well protected at last And ...
... eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes And your silver cross , and your voice like chimes Oh , who do they think could bury you ? [ Oh , who among them do they think could bury you ? ] With your pockets well protected at last And ...
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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