SPIN magazine calls Bob Dylan's "Wiggle Wiggle" one of the worst songs by a great artist
MINNEAPOLIS -- Bob Dylan is surely on the shortlist for most prolific musical artists of all time. And when you write as many songs as he has, there are going to be clunkers -- they can't all be "The Times They Are a-Changin'" or "Like a Rolling Stone," after all. SPIN magazine argues that 1990's "Wiggle Wiggle" is the worst of them all.
The magazine recently dropped its list of "50 Worst Songs by Otherwise Great Artists," and Dylan's ode to wormlike movement lands at 35. For those unfamiliar, here's a sampling of the lyrics: "Wiggle to the front, wiggle to the rear, wiggle 'til you wiggle right out of here. Wiggle 'til it opens, wiggle 'til it shuts, wiggle 'til it bites, wiggle 'til it cuts"
"Wiggle Wiggle" is the leadoff track on Dylan's first record of the '90s, "Under the Red Sky." In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, he said he "wasn't bringing anything at all into the studio" while making that record.
"I was completely disillusioned," he told the magazine. "I'd let someone else take control of it all and just come up with lyrics to the melody of the song."
That may explain how one of history's most lauded lyricists ended up laying down a track in which the word "wiggle" is sung no fewer than 55 times in two minutes and 10 seconds – an average of one wiggle every 2.4 seconds.
"'Wiggle Wiggle' is a very short song, even for one with pop chart-aspirations. Produced by Don Was, the tune sorta just…peters out. Almost as if the people recording it knew they had a turd," SPIN's Mike Postalakis wrote.
Minnesotans can at least take solace in the fact that no Prince song appears on the list.