Sam was a BASKET CASE!

[Lonesome Cowboy Squirt]

Okay, folks, this one's a doozy.  I think the lyrics actually were written by Don Van Vliet.  It surely is a different poetic style from FZ's standard fare.  It seems to me like this one is a companion piece to The Man With the Woman Head.  Both resemble character studies to me.


SAM WITH THE SHOWING SCALP FLAT TOP
Sam with the showing scalp flat top,
particular about the point it made.
Why, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper,
this black juice came out on a hard shelled chin.
And that called that 'tobacco juice'.
I used to fiddle with my back feet music for a black onyx.
My entire room absorbed every echo..
The music was.. thud like. The music was.. thud like.
I usually played such things as rough-neck and thug.
Opaque melodies that would bug most people.
Music from the other side of the fence.
A black swan figurine lay on all color lily pads.
On a little conglomeration table of pressed black felt.
With same color shadows, in seamed knobbed knees, and what-nots.
The long hallway rolled out into oddball odd.
Beside the fly-pecked black doorway,
that looked closed on the tar-lattice street.
Up a wrought iron fire escape.
Rolled out a tiny wooden platform with
dark, hard, dark rubber wheels.
Roll, skreek! Roll, skreek! Roll, skreek!
Sam with the showing scalp flat top,
particular about the point it made.

Sam was a BASKET CASE!

A hardened dark ivory clip held.. saleable everyday pencils.
I wish I had a pair 'o bongos!
Bongo Fury! Bongo Fury!
Oowwwww! Bongo Fury!
(boogie!)
Bongo Fury! Bongo Fury!

I just don't know....this one is pretty obscure.  The only thing I can get out of it is "Country Hick".  Is there anybody else out there that could shed some light on this little booger?

[Debrakadabra]

Okay, I have been reading Ben Watson (Please, don't throw cabbages, they hurt!) and actually he sheds a lot of light on Bongo Fury.  From what I gather, Sam is a paraplegic, which explains the little platform with hard black rubber wheels and the pencils that he is selling.

This is really not FZ's work, I believe the poetry on BF was by Captain Beefheart.  He seems to have the poet's talent for description.  All of Bf is about darkness, ugliness, perversion, cheapness, and endless minutiae about LA and Frank and the Captains's life.  That's why it remains as opaque and difficult as the lyrics in Sam With The Showing Scalp Flattop.

But damn, they do it so well!  The band is excellent, they rock the blues!  I think it has the best version of Advance Romance (and that is not my favorite song!).  I can actually listen to it all the way through.

It is by no accident that I take my name from this album.  It is very underappreciated and so well-crafted!

DebK

[Dogbreath]

      Firstly, Hello again, I have renewed my computer owning tenure...(is that redundant?)

     Secondly, to DebK: You are exactly right: cabbages really hurt when people throw them at you.... ( now darling stomp all over me!!!)
      Also I agree that Bongo Fury is perhaps the most  underated album and indeed one my own personal favorites.
      On the topic, my own humble and likely irrelevant opinion about Van VLiets poetry in general and specifically 'Sam with the showing scalp flatop' is as follows:
      It seems to me to be so personal, dark, and chaulk full of imagery that only really applies to the world of Captain Beefheart that it is beyond interpretaion for ignorant minds like my own. This is a big part of why I love his prose, it seems like it i created totally for himself, pure from the taints of trying to make something "good".
       I'm almost reminded of Finnigan's wake, in that it is fun to listen to recited out loud, but I'll be damned if I could tell you what the author is saying....

        Well good to be back, hoping this demonstrates my lack of usefullness in posting....

[Dogbreath]

           Hopefully this will pump some life into this thread. Although i'm not sure how much discusiion this could spawn...
Here is another doozy:


Lucid tentacles test 'n sleeved
'n joined 'n jointed jade pointed
Diamond back patterns
Neon meate dream of a octafish
Artifact on rose petals
'n flesh petals 'n pots
Fack 'n feast 'n tubes tubs bulbs
In jest incest injest injust in feast incest
'n specks 'n speckled speckled
Speckled speculation
Fedlocks waddlin' feast
Archaic faces frenzy
Ceramic fists artificial deceased
'n cists rancid buds burst
Dank drum 'n dung dust
Meate rose 'n hairs
Meaty meate rose 'n hairs
Meaty dream wet meate
Limp damp rows
Peeled 'n felt fields 'n belts
Impaled on 'n daeman
Mucus mules
Twot trot tra la tra la
Tra la tra la tra la
Whale bone fields 'n belts
Whale bone farmhouse
Cavorts girdled 'n latters uh lite
Cavorts girdled 'n latters uh lite
Uh dipped amidst
Squirmin' serum 'n semen 'n syrup 'n semen
'n serum
Stirrupped in syrup
Neon meate dream of a octafish


I will comment on my own interpretation after I have seen someone else's ideas...

[guacamole]

I agree with DebK's / Ben Watson's interpretation as to what it's all about.
There is also, to my ears anyway a little musical joke in there too, apart from playing "Louie louie" at "SAM WAS A BASKET-CASE", FZ also noodles around with the late, not so great, but friend of many a U.S. President, Bob Hope's signature tune "Thanks For The Memory"- beginning at the "Black swan figurine.........." part.

(or is this just more drivel ?)

[Latex Solar Beef]

Hello there,
Well, hmmmm, have you ever read the credits?(Not rudeness intended)
It says all songs by FZ except Man With The Woman Head and Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top by Don Vliet.   Bye.