Table of Contents

Introduction - an album-by-album guide to Dylan's work; Dylan and the folk tradition; Dylan and the literature tradition; Dylan and rock music; Dylan's use of language - towards complexity; Dylan's use of language - towards a new simplicity; lay down your weary tune - drugs and mysticism; the coming of the slow train; well I investigated all the books in the library; even a post-structuralist oughta have the pre-war blues; closin the book on the pages and the text? yonder comes sin - the retreat from Evangelism; every grain of sand; groom still waiting at the altar? jokerman; Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell and Blind Willie McTell; oh mercy...the second half of the 1980s; nursery rhyme, fairy tale and under the red sky; good as he's been in a world gone wrong? time out of mind; there is only up wing and down wing.