Wilbury Twist

The underwear dance:
Hop, ball and spin like a screw.
Now you get the gist.

This is the last song from the second and final Traveling Wilburys album. It came out in 1990, and someone decided to release this song as a single. Here are the instructions:

To dance the Wilbury Twist, you must have some idea of the basic steps and hand motions. Grace is the key to successful dancing. Fluid, co-ordinated movements are what make a dancer outstanding. Good dancers do not wiggle their hips, but move them naturally in rhythm with the steps and music.

Briefly, there are three things to remember:

1. Feet keep time. 2. Swaying-hips is a natural movement that accentuates rhythm. 3. Hands and facial expressions interpret the meaning of the dance.

And here are the lyrics:

You put your hand on your head
Put your foot in the air
Then you hop around in the room
In your underwear
Ain't ever bin nothin' quite like this
Come on baby it's The Wilbury Twist

Lift your other foot up
Fall on your ass
Get back up,
Put your teeth in a glass
Ain't ever bin nothin' quite like this
It's a magical thing called The Wilbury Twist

Everybody's tryin' to do the Wilbury Twist

Roll up your rug,
Dust your broom
Ball the jack,
Howl at the moon
Ain't ever bin nothin' quite like this
Everybody's tryin' to do The Wilbury Twist

Turn your lights down low
Put your blindfold on
You'll never know
Where your friends have gone
Could be years before you're missed
Everybody's trying to do The Wilbury Twist

It's a different dance
For you all to do
Spin your body like a screw
Better not forget it on your shopping list
You can stop and buy one it's The Wilbury Twist

Ain't never bin nothin' quite like this
Eh, come and get it it's the Wilbury Twist
I guess by now you got the gist
Everybody's crazy 'bout the Wilbury Twist

Suck it, Nijinsky.

Where Were You Last Night?

Where were you last night?
In fact, where were you last year?
Who's my substitute?

"Where Were You Last Night?" is a line with a long history in blues music. Dylan and the other Traveling Wilburys made a new song of it for their second album, released in 1990, though it seems pretty clear that this is primarily a Dylan song. It contains the suspicious questions that he has posed elsewhere to an unnamed lover who has been less than present in their relationship.

1. Where were you last night? What did you do, who did you see?
2. "Were you with someone who reminded you of me?"
3. What about last week? Up a creek? I stayed up all night pacing and wondering.
4. You ignore me more these days.
5. Your messing around is attracting unwelcome gossip and making me feel sad/bad.
6. Where were you last year? Not here. You sent someone else.
7. I'm getting gloomy.

She's My Baby

My girlfriend makes
Pudding, builds boats, and can stick
Her tongue in my throat.

This is the first song on the second Traveling Wilburys album, released in 1990. It's a silly song. See what I'm talking about:

- She has good pudding in the oven. She'd better not go to Hollywood, or I won't have such good pudding ever again.
- My baby drives a truck, a train and an airplane. She's good to look at in the rain.
- She's a stumbling drunk. She goes to various far-off places.
- Body: for business. Head: for sin. She knocks me over like a bowling pin.
- She can build a boat, play guitar and stick her tongue right down my throat. She's my baby.

7 Deadly Sins

Seven deadly sins
Are seven sins too few with
A woman like this.

This song from the second Traveling Wilburys album is a 1950's-style doo-wop-type breakup song. Here's the breakdown:

7 deadly sins are:
- How the world begins
- Something to watch out for
- Where the fun begins
- Never-ending once they start
- Something to watch out for around the bend

The song lists only three of the sins, leaving the rest up to you to fill in:
1. You left me
2. You said goodbye
3. Lying to me

New Blue Moon

Waiting for this girl
Is like waiting for blue moons.
Sightings are quite rare.

"New Blue Moon" from the second Traveling Wilburys album nearly didn't make it into this collection as it feels much more like a George Harrison song. Still, Bob gets a decent slice of the minimal lyrics to himself, the verse that begins with "So many moons have come and gone." Because of that, I included it. I think the words and their relationship to the haiku are clear.

I don't want nothing
Nothing but you
Am I waiting
Looking for a new blue moon

I'm so tired waiting
Waiting for you
Am I waiting
Looking for a new blue moon

So many moons have come and gone
And none of them were blue
Too many times the sun came up
But it came up without you, you, ya yoo hoo oo

You don't call me
Call me lonely
Am I waiting
Looking for a new blue moon

So many moons have come and gone
And none of them were blue
Too many times the sun came up
But it came up without you, you, you, ya yoo hoo oo

Someday when you hold me
Someday you may see
I was waiting
Looking for a new blue moon
I was waiting
Looking for a new blue moon

Blue moon

Inside Out

Yellow grass and sky
Suggest environmental
Problems lie ahead.

The Traveling Wilburys investigate the following settings and discover that not all is as it should be:

- Outside window: grass is yellow. See what they mean?
- Up the chimney: sky is yellow. You know it.
- Down the drainpipe: it's yellow. You can't fool me.
- Into the future via crystal ball: It's yellow if it's there.

The problem:
- You can't figure it all out
- Outside's in
- Downside's up
- Upside's right
- You want to twist and shout

PS:
- There's something funny in the air. Watch your breathing.

This environmental warning song, or maybe it's more of a moral malaise song, appeared on the second and final Traveling Wilburys album in 1990.

If You Belonged to Me

If you were with me
Instead of that jerk, you would
Know what "happy" means.

Here's one from the second and final Traveling Wilburys album. I think that the song is by George Harrison, but Dylan takes pilot duties on the song. It's the usual compare-and-save-on-boyfriends pitch: she's in dire straits, not least because her boyfriend is a loser. The singer offers a chance to switch at 0% APR for an extended period.

1. You're dancing in someone else's clothes. You're coming out of things smelling like a rose, as usual.
2. You wouldn't be full of misery if you belonged to me.
3. You have no sympathy. You want to go to the rodeo just to see the cowboy fall.
4. You say you're free, but you'd be happier if you belonged to me.
5. You're hard to get to.
6. You say you're washed up.
7. You would be happy with me like a baby on daddy's knee.
8. You have a ruthless pimp for a boyfriend. He spends the money you give him on cocaine.
9. You have another option: me.

The Devil's Been Busy

People are wrapped up
In their own troubles, while the
World goes to hell.

This is one of those collaborative "sound of 1,000 acoustic guitars strumming" Traveling Wilburys efforts. From "Vol. 3," their second album, "The Devil's Been Busy" starts off with two verses about the suffering environment. Tom Petty sings about poison sprayed on the golf course, with members of the county club too busy sinking birdies and keeping scorecards to care. Then there are the lines about trucks of toxic waste driving down the highway, with no place to stash it, barring outer space. From there, Dylan takes over, and the lyrics grow more abstract. He delivers a verse about your second cousin and how he was wasted in a fight, then acting in a western, and then a mysterious aphorism:

Sometimes they say you're wicked
But you know that can't be bad.
Sometimes you're better off not knowing,
It'll only make you sad.

Jeff Lynne rounds it all up with some reference to unnamed people coming down Picadilly, "dripping at the dash" and "Wasting sticky Willy, covering him with their cash." They're beating Willy, whoever he is, just like Bob's second cousin earlier in the song. The only reference I can find anywhere else to sticky willy says that it's an it, not a he. In particular, it's a weed, otherwise known as galium aparine, clivers, goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, sticky willow, velcro weed and grip grass. It causes contact dermatitis, but you can make a tea from it and it is edible if cooked before its fruits appear.

Here is the song, which has a pleasant sitar riff that appears regularly.

Cool Dry Place

Rot corrodes Bob's gear.
His landlord yells at him and
He mulls cleaning things.

She's My Baby (Traveling Wilburys)

Dylan's tongue, your throat.
Three other dudes get to watch.
Good-time rock n' roll!