Introduction

Folklore, ethnomusicology, linguistics, anthropology, literary criticism, and philology: none of these fields can be left aside in a thorough attempt to gain insight into the rich dynamics and designs of Bob Dylan's performance artistry. It is indeed in the combined views and equations of these disciplines that scholars may identify with greater precision the complex subtleties or, shall we say, the subtle complexities of Dylan's creative breakthroughs into an art form uniquely his own and yet soundly embedded in American popular culture. Let there be no confusion: the artist under scrutiny performs not for the mathematician's final analysis, even if numbers and calculations abound in the unfolding meaning of his lyrics. From Dylan's powerful allusions to the divisive increments and common denominators of human experience, from his descriptions of the sole heartbeat to the elaborate use of the formulaic that creates a unison of voice, and from his devotion to both new and old, present and past, the avant-garde and the archaic, emerges that deep-set connection between the personal and cultural that is essential for lasting artistic creation. In light of this complexity, no single academic paradigm could enlighten these dynamics in isolation.

The multi-disciplinary emphasis of the Caen Colloquium, held at the Université de Caen in March 2005 was intended to provide a strongly interdisciplinary approach to Dylan's work. Coming together as specialists of fields as diverse as structural anthropology on the one hand—inspired by half a century of field research throughout indigenous America—and threadbare grammatical analysis on the other, Caen Colloquium participants sought to exchange scholarship on Bob Dylan's body of song. Sharing a fascination with Dylan's creative impulses, we also brought to our analyses the effects of his lyrics on our own personal perceptions of art, music, social life, cultural manifestations, personal struggles, universal meanings, and so on. The Colloquium as event allowed us to share our experiences and inspiration as listeners and as conscious interpreters equipped with the academic insights, tools, methods, and concepts—as well as the limitations—of our respective fields. The present publication seeks to provide the more objective and scholarly results of that encounter.

To a certain extent, the selection of the disciplines to be represented at the colloquium was methodic. But, as artistically inspired events will have it, the group that gathered might never have been anticipated. With considerable difficulty, we have divided the papers submitted to us into four disciplines: literary criticism, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and linguistics. Two of the papers appear to us as a melding of two disciplines: Mike Daley's study of Dylan's use of intonation provides new paths into both ethnomusicology and linguistics, while Catharine Mason's work on blues poetics also draws from linguistic analysis as it reaches for a literary approach. Whether the papers be clear-cut contributions from the specified disciplines or, as these two papers show, an essentially interdisciplinary venture, the editors have come to believe that ongoing Dylan studies—and song and performance studies more generally—will profit from the input and collaborative inquiries of a truly interdisciplinary approach.

Studies of song must account for a wide array of cultural phenomena. Linguists points to lexical choices, grammar, phonology, syntax, and stylistics; literary critics lead us to consider the sung text, lyrics, word use, intertextuality, fluctuation of literary register, dialogism, and interpretive strategies; ethnomusicologists focus on melody, rhythm, timbre, intonation, harmony, vocalization, instrumentation, and intermusicality; and anthropologists and culture critics are concerned with social groups and their organization, cultural context, history, tradition, transmission, collective meaning, and so on. All four of these fields can be of tremendous benefit for a more thorough understanding of song and performance.

It all began when an American mother (CM) living abroad with her toddler and newborn began listening closely to the songs from Bob Dylan's album Under the Red Sky (1990). Feeling a million miles away from her home country, she asked, "what is this guy doing with my language?" The children, at that stage compliant with their mother's enthusiasm, soon began to share in the music that Michael Gray (2000...