The Gospel of Thomas and John Lee Hooker

A saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, as given in Elaine Pagels’s The Gnostic Gospels (1979):

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

John Lee Hooker, in “Boogie Chillen No. 2” (1970):

I was layin’ down one night
An’ I heard mama an’ papa talkin’
I heard papa tell mama
Let that boy boogie-woogie
It in him, and it got to come out

And so it did.

See also the 1948 original, “Boogie Chillen’.” I’ve quoted the Hooker and Canned Heat version of the tune because it’s one of my favorite recordings, from one of my favorite albums.

Note: This post is not meant as a joke. As Henry Rollins once told Rolling Stone,

Music is made by those whom music saves. Jimi Hendrix could not have done anything else with himself. John Lee Hooker, what else is he going to do? Work at McDonald’s?