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Bob Dylan Talking Blues Music Analysis

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2) Medial Level: Genre, Performance, General Phonological- and Syntactical Structures

“Not conceptual speech, but music rather, is the element through which we are best spoken to by mystical truth” (James 326). This utterance by William James, an American philosopher and psychologist, discloses that there is something to music that reinforces the transmission of messages compared to written words that are just read. Beside the topic, the title of the musician 's song reveals further information, namely about the musical genre and about Dylan 's way of ʻsingingʼ - or rather performing. Both aspects are combined in the term “talking blues.” This form is tempting to many young singers [- such as Bob Dylan at that time -] because it seems so pliable and yet so simple. However, the simpler a form, the more revealing it is of the essence of the performer. There 's no place to hide in the talking blues (Dylan 2004 b), 68).
This musical genre1, the “talking blues,” Dylan chose for his song, matches the serious subject matter by the use of spoken lyrics and at the same time Dylan generates a humorous mood since his song is, as Wise defines for the genre mentioned, “characterized by humorous or satirical verses rhythmically spoken, rather than sung, almost invariably …show more content…

“The basic rhythm [of a “talking blues”] is always two-four or four-four at a tempo of about 114 to 132 beats per minute” (Ibid.). Now checking Dylan 's song for this feature, it turns out that the instruments adhere to the rhythm, whereas the verses are rather irregular which is visually marked by their strongly varying length. This also contributes to the satirical

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