Prewar Blues Lyrics & Dylan Lyrics Concordances 'N Stuff

March 5, 2008 10:02 PM

The things I like best about Michael Taft's Prewar Blues Lyrics Concordance, a subsection of T. G. Lindh's Web Concordances of Pre-War Blue Lyrics and Bob Dylan Lyrics, are the listings of the lyrics by singer: A - C, D - H, J - L, M - R and S - Y. And the nice thing about the blues lyrics is you don't need to ask for a log in and password. It 's all right there. Explore and enjoy.

What is a Concordance ? you may ask.

Well, woot, there it is: A concordance is a comprehensive index of the words used in a text or a body of texts. .

See also The Web Concordances and Workbooks. Not to mention the less scholary, more incomplete and occasionally rather dubious Jug Band Dictionary, as the etymologies of some words therein are sometimes more folk than the author realizes...

posted by y2karl (9 comments total)

http://prewarblues.org/ is a great companion to this, Peter Patnaik posts audio and background history that I can't enough of. I have been listening to this recording over and over this week.
posted by annathea at 12:44 AM on March 6, 2008

This is great. And blues lyrics can get unfathomably weird:

Good times have come in : don't you see the signs
White folks standing around here : spending a-many dimes
'Males so hot : it burns my hand
Says I can't hardly get them : out of my can

Anybody know what that last couplet might mean?

Thanks, y2karl!
posted by languagehat at 6:30 AM on March 6, 2008

Maybe this would shed some light, languagehat: Hot tamales. This southerner's assumption is that he just bought a batch of hot tamales that are too hot to eat yet. You can draw your own conclusions about any double entendre.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 6:39 AM on March 6, 2008

Tamales, of course! Thanks, AskMetaFilter 1f2frfbf!
posted by languagehat at 7:24 AM on March 6, 2008

FYI, karl: NWFF will be showing The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival March 21-23.
posted by mwhybark at 8:32 AM on March 6, 2008

Well, for a fact, I have the DVD but... it might be nice to see it on a big screen. I liked his Chimes of Freedom from 1964 Festival the best, especially the bit at the end where he bounds back on stage after an endless ovation and begs the audience's pardon with such charm and grace. I love you! is not a sentiment an audience would ever hear from Dylan ever again.

On another note, The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack came out on DVD and I bought it. And was reminded once again what a mixed bag that was. Oh, man, did his daughter get on my nerves with her endless attempts to have an On Golden Pond moment with dad. And the way she talked over the clip of his 912 Greens was most annoying. Shut up and let him sing his best song, for chrissake!

On the other hand, his is the voice on the commentary track, which I have yet to hear, so there is something to which to look forward.

Hmm, after persuing that SWFF catalogue, I have to say that Roots and Branches: American Music On Screen looks likes a must see,
posted by y2karl at 9:28 AM on March 6, 2008

Okay, this will eat up part of my night tonight. Thanks for the post. As annathea suggests, it goes nicely with prewarblues.org, which, coincidentally, ate up most of my night last night. (Did prewarblues get posted to the blue? I'm wondering now how I found it and bookmarked it in the first place--I'd like to find that original post and say thanks.)

The other thing I did last night that seems relevant here was listen to an episode of Dyl-Time Theme Radio Hour. It's a take-off on Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour (note: two links in that second name, one official, one unofficial). Dyl-Time Theme Radio Hour is a podcast put together by a fan. The episode I listened to had a theme of covers, and compared the original versions of songs with the covers Dylan later made of them at his live shows through the years. Very entertaining, and shows the deep respect for these old idioms that runs through his work.
posted by roombythelake at 12:10 PM on March 6, 2008

Honey, where you been so long? A music blog featuring almost daily links to mp3s of pre-war blues musicians. Previously mentioned in-thread here and here.

A pre-war blues blog
posted to MeFi by persona non grata at 9:49 PM on July 12 2006
posted by y2karl at 1:39 PM on March 6, 2008

(aww, it's closed to new comments. Well, thanks, anyway, persona non grata, two years after the fact! You're definitely not non grata with me!)
posted by roombythelake at 1:57 PM on March 6, 2008