by Larry Fyffe
38: Claudette
The Travelling Tarantula Show carries biblical allusions and allegories, often dark humorous ones, on its ink-stained back.
Claudette, the sandman's pupil wounded in her fifth year in the business & she's only fifteen & go and ask her what she thinks of married men & governors & shriner conventions ... (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Biblically speaking, with the benefit of far-stretching hindsight, Claudette’s easily conflated with Aholibah, a female symbol for Judah, historically the southern region of mighty Israel.
Informed are its inhabitants (the sons of man) that, though the country is at the time like a two-horned stick, the southern part will get re-united with the northern region of Samaria (symbolized by sister Aholah):
Moreover, thou son of man Take one stick, and write upon it "For Judah, and the children of Israel ..." (Ezekiel 37:16)
Both Aholibah and Aholah are accused of being guilty of idolatry; that is, they are unfaithful to Yahweh ~ the Hebrew God – construed as the aforementioned ‘Sandman’:
Don't know what I can say about Claudette That wouldn't come back to haunt me Finally had to give her up About the time she began to want me (Bob Dylan: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar)
Supposedly, in those days of old, Aholah consorts with Assyrians, and “Claudette”, she’s a worse sinner – Aholibah also has sex with the Babylonians; and she’s rather fond of Egyptian soldiers with penises as large as those of donkeys.
Needless to say, Claudette’s not like the innocent, loyal, and faithful Ruth, the youthful gleaner-of-grain mentioned in the Bible.
She’s alluded to below:
(N)ow Ruthy - she was different - she always wanted to see a cock fight & went to Mexico City when she was 17 (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Also alluded to beneath, but Ruth’s less worldly in the Romantic Transcendentalist’s poem:
No nightingale did ever chant More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt Among Arabian sands (William Wordsworth: The Solitary Reaper)
Meanwhile, the always-patient groom Yahweh waits for Claudette at the altar … wondering what the hell the little whore is up to:
What can I say about Claudette Ain't seen her since January (She could be in the mountains or the prairies) She could be respectfully married Or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires (Bob Dylan: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar)
Anyway, not to worry ~ Christianized apostle Paul’s a-gonna see to it that all them naughty boys and girls receive their just punishments:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest Which are these - Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Galatians 5: 19,20, 21)
39: Peoria, Illinois
George Custer IV, third bachelor, weary from trying to chew up a stork, takes out his harmonica (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
In ‘Tarantula’, singer/writer/musician Bob Dylan tosses out some fishy tails behind his travelling salvation medicine show to throw bloodhounds off the trail.
Likely, it’s George Hamilton IV, an American guitar-picker to whom Dylan refers above; a rockabilly singer who becomes popular in Canada.
Sings ‘Abilene’, a song based on a Randolph Scott western film; therein lawman Dan convinces the folks of a small town in Kansas to stand up to rough and rowdy cattlemen; Scott shoots the boss of the cattle drivers
Says the TS Eliot-influenced marshal at the end of the movie, “This is how a tough street dies, not with a roar but with a whine”:
Prettiest town I've ever seen Women there don't treat you mean In Abilene, my Abilene (George Hamilton IV: Abilene - Gibson, et.al.)
Apparently, George IV is able to sidestep a shootout with a notorious gunslinger from Illinois – known as the Peoria Kid:
& men going outside with Maurice Who ain't the Peoria Kid (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Also avoids a fight against Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, a battle that takes place along the banks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory:
Offers up the following ditty:
May your heart always be righteous May your heart always be true May you always know the truth And see the lights surrounding you ... May you stay forever young (George Hamilton IV: Forever Young ~ Dylan)
In the lyrics beneath, the li’l Illinois town of Peoria gets burlesqued:
Oh how I wish I was in Peoria, Peoria tonight Oh how I miss those gals in Peoria, Peoria tonight Why did I ever roam with those sailor boys I should-a stayed back home in Illinois (Smothers Brothers: I Wish I Was In Peoria ~ Rose/Dixon/Woods)
The song harks back to the Zulu War in South Africa:
& the fellow next door - he must be a Zulu - the doctors cant stand him & he gets no visitors ((Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
Thus go the song lyrics:
We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria, Pretoria We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria, hoorah ... Dance with me, I'll dance with you And so we will dance together (The Weavers: We Are Marching To Pretoria ~ traditional)
- 1: Tarantula
- 2: The Tarantula Crawls Across The Circus Floor and 3: Arachnida Is Dead
- 4: The Bride and 5: The Return of Tarantula
- 6: Everybody loves a critic and 7: Hopalong Bob
- 8: Mad, Bad, And A Stranger To Know and 9: Miss Lucy And Mr. Jinx
- 10: A Madder Piece From Ginsberg Street and 11: The Long Dark Stranger
- 12: More Mixed Up Confusion and 13: Oval Faubus
- 14: A tattletale Heart; and 15: Tarzantula
- 16: Tarantula: “Shake that Spear” and 17: “Hopalong Bob”
- 18: The Tale Of Dale And Debbie and 19: The Golden Gate
- 20: Your Harmless Fate and 21: Thelonius
- 22: the Egotist and 23: The Lord of the Spiders
- 24: Cream Cheese and 25 Davy Crocker
- 26: The Lumberjacks Are Coming
- 27: Lem the Clam; 28: An Untold Production: Tyrantula, The Motion Picture
- 29: The Tarantula Files continued
- Tarantula 30: Oh Pancho Oh Cisco
- 31 & 32 “Too hot to handle” and “Lucien’s Tarantula”
- 33: The ‘Untold’ Movie Musical Extravaganza “Tarantula” (with liner notes)
- Tarantulazarus and Clytia (Tarantula 34 & 35)
- Nadine and the Censor (Tarantula 36 & 37)