54. Wiggle Wiggle

Ominous again. Something’s approaching. Strike of a chord, strike of a chord, strike of a chord. The lead guitar slithers in with a dirty lick as the chords go on being struck, then it adds a cleaner lick that spirals downwards as the drums bring in the band and the main body of the song, which is not as dark as its introduction. So one would think, anyway. After living with this song and its album for years, I would change the “that’s not” in that last statement to “that doesn’t seem.”

Like Man Gave Names to All the Animals, the song ends with the image of a “big fat snake” wiggling its way along—to where? And it’s the opener of an album with a whole lot of brimstone and sorrow underneath its upbeat, gleaming performances. Not all is as lighthearted as it may sound.

But I do think this is Bob’s funniest song, and I don’t mean “funny” as a put-down, like “Ha ha ha, this is such crap!”—obviously, else you wouldn’t be seeing this song almost halfway up my list of hundred favorites. I’ve never understood why a song so cleverly penned has the reputation of being drivel, unworthy of the man who wrote Desolation Row, etc., etc. Under the Red Sky uses children’s rhymes and fairy tales as a central conceit around which it pleats religion, heartbreak, mystery, apocalypse. Wiggle Wiggle opens the door to this world in which everything is possible and most things are getting worse. It’s a song of dancing and abandon, where not all of the revelry leads to a happy high: some end up bitten, some end up cut, some end up dead or exiled (“’til you wiggle right out of here”), and everyone—as the structure of the song suggests, and the sinister feeling of the instrumental B section which closes out the song—in thrall to a dubious leader. It’s fitting that the opening seconds sound like (the 1990 Hollywood studio approximation of) a witches’ sabbath.

The band (including Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses on—yes, you guessed it—acoustic rhythm guitar) play with the desperation of gray-bearded kings shortly to be toppled from their thrones. There’s an awesome electric guitar solo (not Slash’s) full of exactly the kind of frenzy that you’d expect from a song with fifty-five injunctions to wiggle, but it gets faded away almost as soon as it begins, which is appropriate, since already the scene is changing to a different, more peaceful one, Wiggle Wiggle’s unfettered and somewhat demonic party making way for the gentle title track.

Did I say gentle? Hmm...

But to get back to Wiggle Wiggle being the one song of Dylan’s that has made me laugh more than any other, I might add, for it is relevant, that the song is also among those I would deem his most imaginative. Not because the lyrics come out looking like Visions of Johanna or Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight, but because, honestly, who among us would come up with even a quarter of Bob’s images here, if we were asked to name things that wiggle? These are either absolutely spot-on (most of them) or absolutely not (“wiggle like a ton of lead” !!!) and either way hilarious. The first image, right out the gate, is brilliant: a gypsy queen! On the overweight side, perhaps? I love how the rhyme in the next line, rather than offering a new simile, develops the first, “all dressed in green” (“Is this song about ecology, Bob?” “No, but it won’t pollute the environment”). I love the sweetness of “Wiggle ‘til the moon is blue / Wiggle ‘til the moon sees you,” suggestive of a parent trying to communicate something of the sweetness of the world—of the presence of love and affection in what often seems a cold and mean place—to a little child.

I’m not going to say how much I love every line—you can listen to the song and think to yourself, “Sigismund Sludig loves this line—and this line—and this line,” and you won’t be far off the mark. But I do want to say that, in my household, “wiggle wiggle wiggle like a bowl of soup” is probably the single most-quoted song lyric. Whenever, as we go about our daily business, anything or anyone makes a motion resembling a wiggle, either my wife or I will come out with it, and often laugh anew.

Oh, and I should say, too, that “Wiggle ‘til you’re high, wiggle ‘til you’re higher / Wiggle ‘til you vomit fire” is my vote for THE most uproariously funny Dylan lyric there is, especially the way Bob delivers it, waiting between the two lines and then beginning the second as if uncertainly, whereas of course he’s well aware of the ridiculous rhyme he’s about to to deliver. The first time I listened to Under the Red Sky, that couplet made me crack up so loud and for so long that I missed the whole next bunch of jokes.

So, that’s a lot about the lyrics, since I felt they needed defending. Musically, this is a kick-ass little number. The foreboding intro sets up the song’s ambivalent mood, but when Wiggle Wiggle is in party mode, it parties hard. The more closely I listen to Under the Red Sky, the more I learn to appreciate Kenny Aronoff, the drummer that Robert Christgau singled out for praise in his review of the album. The snare breaks here are wonderful. Wonderful, too, are those aforementioned eerie instrumental passages, in which the acoustic guitar is backed by dark noodling from the electric. The organ is fantastic. And Dylan’s singing is out-of-this-world sensitive and measured. Listen to the subdued roar of “hands and knees,” the outright roar of “big fat snaaaake” and the pointed pause between “fat” and “snake,” the way Dylan’s voice is raised for the word “raise” in “raise the dead,” the urgency and uninhibitedness of the singing in the B-sections (the “wiggle to the front” and “wiggle ‘til you’re high” parts), the unexpected drop and change of melody for “pail of milk.”

All this, yes, and just 2:09.

Plus a postscript, from new “research.” Despite some carelessness with the lyrics, the live performance from Danbury, Connecticut, on May 11th, 1991, is a fireball. The lyrics that Dylan does sing, of which some are ad-libbed, are sung with passion and attention. Paradoxical but true. And the band (which I love—how could I not? Ian Wallace is drumming!) rips through the song. J. J. Jackson plays a fierce solo where, on the studio version, the fade-out would be. And still having fun with his once-producer’s inquiry about Under the Red Sky's title track, Dylan introduces Wiggle Wiggle as “about the ecology problem.”