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 15
... vocal phrasing and inflections quite identical to those of the four previous refrains . The unrelieved oppressiveness of the performance stands in tension with any potential for hope in the lyrics . The entire song is one of Dylan's ...
... vocal phrasing and inflections quite identical to those of the four previous refrains . The unrelieved oppressiveness of the performance stands in tension with any potential for hope in the lyrics . The entire song is one of Dylan's ...
Page 66
... Vocal phrasing imitates " fallen " ; a vocal flourish , in addition , makes the two - syllable " curls " sound curly , as Dylan's voice loops up and around before descending to the pitch of the second syllable . This rendering can be ...
... Vocal phrasing imitates " fallen " ; a vocal flourish , in addition , makes the two - syllable " curls " sound curly , as Dylan's voice loops up and around before descending to the pitch of the second syllable . This rendering can be ...
Page 126
... vocal phrasing , however , leaps right out and demands listener attention . As the song opens , for example , the first two lines are phrased differently than the second two , in equal musical spaces : Go away . from my window Leave ...
... vocal phrasing , however , leaps right out and demands listener attention . As the song opens , for example , the first two lines are phrased differently than the second two , in equal musical spaces : Go away . from my window Leave ...
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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