The Hokey Pokey Deconstructed
The Hokey Pokey makes an apparently playful claim in the refrain that closes each verse. But suppose we take this line at face value. What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's all about? Should we not examine its rhymes more closely then, since the meaning of existence itself lies within them?
When viewed in this light, the opening verse can be seen as dealing with the issue of commitment in a profound sense. Note that the "You" is clearly us, and we are tentative at best in our involvement with life's deep mystery.
You put your right foot in
You put your right foot out
You put your right foot in
Why the hesitation? Why the reversal of action? It is a fear that if we participate we will, in a sense, be owned? Are we Daphne, fleeing from the Apollo of life's responsibilities?
Or in more Jungian terms, are we startled by the Shadow--which is in one sense is the path not taken? If you put your right foot in, you are certainly putting your right foot out from someplace else. Do we fear that the choice we make leaves a better choice behind? Perhaps. So we give a half-hearted effort, as evidenced in the fourth line:
And you shake it all about
Yes, we have chosen to participate. But do we do so in a meaningful way? No. We take the foot and “shake it all about.” A hollow gesture. Our foot is, to borrow a line from Shakespeare, “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” So we find that this participation for the sake of participation leaves us empty. What then do we do?
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around
We do the Hokey Pokey. The words themselves are intentionally meaningless—in an almost Dadaistic way. The Hokey Pokey is beyond words. Like the Tao, the Hokey Pokey that can be named is not the true Hokey Pokey.
The power to change ourselves—it would seem—cannot come from ourselves. Every man is exactly clever enough to fool himself. The defining mind is not the answer, reason will not be our savior. The song suggests that it is the transforming magic of the undefinable Hokey Pokey that lets us “turn ourselves around.”
We could say this application of creative nonsense represents the abandonment of our old, self-limiting mental constructs. Logic, as Einstein once wrote, only shows us the connection from what we know to more of what we already know. It is the playful imagination that leads us higher.
And so as the song progresses, the dance with commitment—with communion—continues on through the next several verses. In each successive verse, various extremities are tested, one at a time. In and out. First one, then another.
But in the end, this is not the answer. What then, is the solution?
You put your whole self in
And you shake it all about
Now we have made the full leap of faith, literally jumping in--as we must, since we are moving at last with our whole self. Nothing held back. Nothing left behind. A complete abandonment to whatever will be.
And as we joyously shake our whole self, we find that we are both the shaker and the shaken, with no part of us anchored and stationary. We are vibrating now, sounding out a note in harmony with everything known and unknowable.
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about.