A Different Country

'The Old, Weird America' on Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes

Authors

  • Hans Verhees Utrecht University

Abstract

This article looks at how a different world, a mythical version of America, is created on Bob Dylan's 1975 album The Basement Tapes by reflecting on Rolling Stone-critic Greil Marcus' ideas on 'The Old-Weird America'. Using the Romantic idea of mythology and the Transcendentalist poetics of Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson as a theoretical backdrop and the Anthology of American Folk Music as a template, it tries to find a different America in the songs on The Basement Tapes.

Author Biography

  • Hans Verhees, Utrecht University

    Hans Verhees (1987) is currently in the Research MA program of Literary Studies at Utrecht University, having also received his BA degree in Literary Studies there in 2009.

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2009): Queer Studies

Section

Masterclass

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Verhees, H. (2026). A Different Country: ’The Old, Weird America’ on Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 22(2), 72-83. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27478