by Larry Fyffe
In regards to ‘Tarantula’ by Bob Dylan ~
Details about the three pin-up gals are rather sketchy and confusing, but it seems Betty’s gangster-friend gets a bit too fresh with Zelda and Jenny at a steamy bar; apparently, he ends up stabbed to death; the cool-headed narrator of the story, with his donkey, take off with Jenny.
Next morning, says to a reporter from the National Enquirer:
"(I) still aint gonna tell you nothing about Jenny" (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Certainly leaves the impression that Jenny did the bad boy in.
In any event, detectives Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes, both disguised, are snooping around for clues:
Mona’s cousin – this 320 pound Frenchman
– he resembles Arthur Canon Doyle
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
A guy named ‘Monk’ raises Sherlock Holmes’ suspicious eyebrow:
Monk, typical flunky & writer of eccentric gag lines to tell yourself if you're ever hung up in the Andes (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Detective Auguste Dupin notes that the author who pens the the song beneath is surely ultimately responsible for the death of Big Diamond Jim:
Big Jim lay covered up Killed by a penknife in the back And Rosemary on the gallows She didn't even blink (Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)
It’s quite likely that the monk, who’s disguised as such in the song below, is the killer of Betty’s gangster friend in ‘Tarantula’ ~ anyway, so surmise the two detectives with the help of Lord Buckley:
As the leading actor hurried by In a costume of a monk There was no actor anywhere Better than than the Jack of Hearts (Bob Dylan: Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts)
The two private-eyes set out to prove the robber called Jack in the song above is the one and the same figure who’s known as Monk in the spider-book.
They claim that Monk is the offspring of the AntiChrist – based on the line ~ “(T)here is a gigantic mirror & Monk immediately disintegrates.”
The son of the Beast alluded to in the Holy Bible:
I considered the horns, and, behold There came up among them another little horn .... And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man And a mouth speaking great things (Daniel 7:8)
Now ain’t that just like the Jack of Hearts who moves across the mirrored room; says, ‘set it up for everyone’ … and then later disappears.
*and his donkey