Decoding Dylan

Jim Curtis taught at the University of Missouri-Columbia for 31 years. He lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

“Songs for Passersby” by James M. Curtis

Preface

Introduction

Section I: Theories and Practices

1. Bob Dylan: His Biography and His Career

2. The Early Years in New York

3. Affinities with Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot and Pablo Picasso

Section II: Songs and Songwriting

4. Songs of Transcendence—Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde

Table 1. Chronology of Songs

Table 2. Night Songs

5. Songs of Assimilation—John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline

6. “Putting a Certain Orderliness to the Chaos”

Table 3. Rhyme Forms in Dylan’s Songs of the Early 1960s

Table 4. Rhyme Forms in Dylan’s Songs of the Late 1960s

Table 5. Examples of Triple Rhymes in Tin Pan Alley Songs

Table 6. Triple Rhymes or More in Some American Songs (1968–1984)

7.  Dylan and Springsteen

8. The Real Revolution of the 1960s

Table 7. Chronologies of Early Successes of Dylan, Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen by Approximate Age

Conclusion: Dylan’s Paradoxes

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index