Ink Mathematics

This is one of my favorites by Beefheart. The poetry and playing is just brilliant in they way they interlock and on their own as well.

The song has a few different meanings for me. The main thing he's getting across seems to be that there is math in everything (which there is), and that can lead to pretty scary stuff - stuff beyond ourselves (moon to a flea). Einstein's math somehow got translated into the atomic bomb - which is what the top and middle sections of the poem are describing.

I love the line "it's plain to feel, hard to see". If you break it down and do any kind of reading on quantum physics, WE are math and the air is math and really everything in the universe - including our own thoughts - is information. Which of course is plain to feel and very hard to see.

The last part of the poem is a bit more upbeat - Don breathes black and white, day and night. This refers to his own ink mathematics - writing songs and painting as well. Many of his drawings and paintings were in black and white during his Beefheart days.

Forgot to mention .. I also love the line "noggin elastics" because it also sounds like "not gonna last-ics" - the Beef loved to play with words and this is a great example of that.