If anything, Beefheart's wordcollection is just as anti-lyrical as a computer's wet dream. But, it's just as clear that that's what the venerable Captain had in mind. His personal lyric tradition is as thoroughly grounded in amoral nonsense as Bob Dylan's is fixed in moral conviction. The sense of Beefheart's lyrics is contained in the fantasy of taking the "real world" into the Hall of Mirrors and discovering that you can't tell the difference between the reality and the distorted reflection. If Beefheart is linked to anything, it's to an up-dating of a circa-1940 Walt Disney cartoon vision of the March-Of-Progress. My favorites, not surprisingly, are the nonsense syllable lyrics: "Woe-is-a-me-bop/ Om-drop-a-re-bop-om," and running a close second is one of the most terrifying images since Bosch: "I bumped a mama spider and the babies begin to fall/Off a my broom/Now I've gotta keep sweepin sweepin/Before they fill the room."

To posit an activity compatible with listening to Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby, look up Dadism in the Children's Brittanica or The Art of Loving and mark the pages with snot or jism. Paint the cover with dayglo sprayed through your nostrils and put the book back where it belongs. Do the dishes that have been collecting in the sink since Easter. Spatter the record with formic acid and analyze the resultant variation.