Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction xi
Part One. Poetic History and Techniques within Poems and Songs
3 The Day Johnny Cash Died / Lamar Alexander
6 Reduced to Rhyme: On Contemporary Doggerel / David Caplan
26 The Sonnet Within the Song: Country Lyrics and the Shakespearean Sonnet
Structure / Charlotte Pence
35 Rap Poetry 101 / Adam Bradley
43 It Don't Mean a Thing: The Blues Mask of Modernism / Kevin Young
75 Gangsta Rap's Heroic Substrata: A Survey of the Evidence / John Paul Hampstead
90 At the Crossroads: The Intersection of Poetry and the Blues /
Keith Flynn
106 Country Music Lyrics: Is There Poetry in Those Twangy Rhymes? /
Jill Jones
122 Similarities and Differences between Song Lyrics and Poetry / Pat Pattison
134 Words and Music: Three Stories / Wyn Cooper
Part Two. Analysis of Twentieth-Century Songwriters
145 The Triumph of Icarus: Sam Cooke and the Creative Spirit / Peter Guralnick
158 The Joe Blow Version / David Kirby
169 A Nobel for Dylan? / Gordon Ball
180 Lyric Impression, Muscle Memory, Emily, and the Jack of Hearts / Claudia Emerson
186 Don Khan and Truck-Driving Wives: Dylan's Fluctuating Lyrics / Ben Yagoda
193 Thoughts on "Me and Bobby McGee" and the Oral and Literary Traditions /
David Daniel
199 The Soup That Could Change the World / Beth Ann Fennelly
203 Laughing in Tune: R.E.M. and the Post-Confessional Lyric / Jeffrey Roessner
212 Sweetness Follows: Michael Stipe, John Keats, and the
Consolations of Time / Eric Reimer
225 Sweeping Up the Jokers: Leonard Cohen's "The Stranger Song" / Brian Howe
232 Facing the Music: The Poetics of Bruce Springsteen / Robert P. McParland
243 Coming into Your Town: Okkervil River's "Black" / Stephen M. Deusner
253 Still Holding at the Seams: Magnolia Electric Co.'s Josephine and the Contemporary
Poetic Sequence / Jesse Graves
261 Not to Oppose Evil: Johnny Cash's Bad Luck Wind / Tony Tost
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index