“Wiggle Wiggle,” the opening cut from Bob Dylan’s 1990 album Under the Red Sky, is a slight little goof, certainly nothing to compare with his best work. You can only wonder what might have been, however, had Dylan decided to use the guitar parts Slash left him.
Yes, that’s Guns N’ Roses former guitarist playing the acoustic rhythm on this Don Was-produced session, but there was something more to his original collaboration with Bob Dylan, and it got left on the cutting room floor, Slash says.
“I put what I thought was one of my better one-off solos on there,” Slash tells CBS Radio. “Then I took off home, and I said: ‘Send me a rough mix, whenever you get one.’ So, Don had the tape messengered over a couple days later, and I’m listening to it. It’s the song ‘Wiggle Wiggle,’ and it’s a very sort of innocuous song in the first place [chuckles], and so here comes the solo section — and it’s just acoustic. There’s a pointless acoustic section, then the song kicked back in.”
A call to Don Was followed, of course. Slash inquired as to his original solo, now missing. “He goes: ‘Well, Bob thought it sounded too much like Guns N’ Roses’ — which, for me, was the ultimate compliment,” Slash adds. “All things considered, at least I was a part of a band that had an identifiable sound, and the guitar playing was recognizable for Bob to notice that. It was a drag, because I thought the solo was pretty good. But, you know, live and learn. For me, it was one of those classic sessions stories that I adore.”
Slash wasn’t the only guest star to appear on Under the Red Sky, of course. In fact, he said he watched George Harrison, a long-time friend of Bob Dylan’s, add slide guitar to the title cut. Harrison’s contribution, however, actually made it through Dylan’s editing process, unlike Slash’s. He finally got to give “Wiggle Wiggle” his best shot as part of 2014’s Bob Dylan in the ’80s: Volume One, which found Slash updating the song with Aaron Freeman of Ween fame.
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