The
Blue Swirl Plastic Ocarina
Words and images by Gary Marker
Here it is, a top and a bottom view, and as you'll
note there are indeed blue swirls--which leads to my oft stated assertion
that very often Don's lyrics were simply based on real life, everyday,
mundane objects and/or situations--and weren't necessarily puzzling metaphors
or analogies referring to anything particularly arcane or obscure. Sometimes,
he just liked the way the words sounded when strung together in a particular
way. No deep meaning was intended.
The ocarina is plastic and does indeed have blue swirls, but is more
like 6 inches long--not five miles. But to Don it seemed a couple miles
long when he spent several hours at my house attempting to play it whilst
drifting on Windowpane, back in, oh, 1966 or thereabouts. The results were
not dissimilar from his subsequent bleats on squawks on soprano sax. And
yes, the slang term for the instrument back then was "sweet potato." My
Dad gave it to me when I was a kid, he bought it during WW2 when he was
stationed at Keesler Field (Army Air Corps Base) in Biloxi, Mississippi.
He couldn't find a decent guitar to play, so he snagged a cheap sweet potato
to noodle on in the meantime. Van Vliet was intrigued by it when he spied
it at my house because:
A) He was seriously zapped on acid
B) He had never seen a plastic ocarina before, especially with a "psychedelic"
pattern, only the baked clay renditions of the primitive instrument that
mostly came from Mexico. And the ceramic versions were, incidentally, about
the size and shape of a sweet potato--hence the name.
That old ocarina has seen better days--but it is, after all, over 60
years old. And back then they didn't compound plastic resins and polymers
the way they do now. This old one has actually shrunken quite a bit, so
the pitch is off and some notes hardly play at all.
Many thanks to Gary Marker. Used with permission.
I Wanna Find Me a Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till
I Have to Go
From the album 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby'
I wanna find me a woman that'll hold my big toe till I have to go
I wanna find me a blue swirl plastic ocarina 'bout 5 miles long
n' play with them sweet potatoes all night long
'cause them yams have all them eyes
that yawn n' yearn
down yonder below the ground
n' their golden hair is uh dirty brown
I wanna find me a woman that'll hold my big toe yeah
I wanna find me a woman that'll hold my big toe now
I wanna hold me a woman that'll find my big toe till I have to go
n' sow my last sweet potato
sow my last sweet potato
sow my last sweet potata