By Larry Fyffe
Dylanologists who are followers of conventional Christian beliefs twist the lyrics of certain songs by Bob Dylan to make them ‘fit in’; however, when listened to without the encumbrance of standard religious doctrines, the lyrics tend to reveal a mystical, a ‘gnostic’ search for ‘wisdom’ – a wisdom that is garnered by lucky ones through knowledge of ancient religions and mythologies.
Thinkers like Emanuel Swedenborg, Pyotre Ouspensky, and Carl Jung account for a Universe in which God appears to dance with the Devil by linking up microcosmic aspects thereof with the microcosmic.
Akin to Frederich Nietzsche and William Yeats, and even in a song that’s written especially for children, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan presents images on the microcosmic level of an individual who copes with a life, a life that, according to some mystics, recurs over and over again for all eternity – a cosmological view that’s unlike the main form of Christainity that envisions a life linear, ending in a permanent ‘afterlife’:
Accordingly, such mystics express, in unique spiritual visions, a love for life, and a coping with dark situations in which one finds him or herself by kicking up their boot heels rather than settling for a life of utter drudgery in the land of the living dead – a better life in some external hereafter is a mirage; what’s in one’s head is what matters:
(Bob Dylan: Wiggle, Wiggle)
In short, fear not life – dance with Satan who dresses in satin and silk:
(Bob Dylan: Wiggle, Wiggle)
An Australian Rolling Stone-influenced bar band clean up the lyrics of one of their songs called ‘Everybody Wiggle’, written by John Fields, and put it out on a record suitable for children:
Wiggle to this song
(The Cockroaches: Get Ready To Wiggle)
Through many a dark hour, I’ve been thinking about this due to the recurring rhymes in the two songs; their themes both appear to be a wild Dionysiac search for ‘gnostic’ wisdom with the end rhymes ‘long/wrong/strong’ suggesting a macroscopic connection with The Cockroaches, an archetypal coincidence, for sure:
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* with the macroscopic…
** John Field
Dylan himself says “Wiggle Wiggle” is a song about fishing …
Perhaps referring to:
And He saith unto them:
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”
(Book of Matthew 4:19)
More likely because Gary Cooper nicknamed energetic Shirley Temple “Wiggle Britches”; they starred in the movie “Now And Forever” from which Dylan borrows the line about things not looking so large when closer up for his song ‘Tight Connection To My Heart.”