A pirate/hobo rides a train and recollects the events that led to the conception of his daughter. He speaks with a "little one with little dimpled fingers" possibly meaning a young child, "give me one" means he wishes to lead her to the goddess, using the cherry phosphate as a bonus/bribe. The goddess is the boat that he was shanghaied on, where he met the soft lass with brown skin.
"God before me if I'm not crazy, is my daughter" may mean that the "daughter" is just a young girl of the same or similar ethnicity of the soft lass with brown skin that reminds him of what his daughter could look like, but the 30 years would mean that his daughter would not be portrayed as a young girl, so perhaps the abstractness of the song is used to show that perhaps he is unstable, though good writing suggests using concrete, discrete language, and Beefheart definitely does in other songs like "well" and "the dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back"
the fact that he found his daughter or a young girl that reminds him of his daughter brings saltwater tears to his eyes, once again referencing his life as a sailor.
Perhaps the multiple references of being a father means he's in an ethnic area, and all of the women there remind him of his daughters, or could even be his daughters. Thoughts?
@nebraskan I can't find it online now, but I remember reading somewhere that the narrator hasn't actually been "lost at sea" for thirty years. The little girl is his daughter, but he has this other (black) family somewhere, the result of an affair he had when as a young sailing-man he was "shanghaied", and that's why he's been spending so much time voyaging at sea for the past thirty years - taking care of them. Which is why no-one seems to know him when he comes home now.
@nebraskan I can't find it online now, but I remember reading somewhere that the narrator hasn't actually been "lost at sea" for thirty years. The little girl is his daughter, but he has this other (black) family somewhere, the result of an affair he had when as a young sailing-man he was "shanghaied", and that's why he's been spending so much time voyaging at sea for the past thirty years - taking care of them. Which is why no-one seems to know him when he comes home now.
A pirate/hobo rides a train and recollects the events that led to the conception of his daughter. He speaks with a "little one with little dimpled fingers" possibly meaning a young child, "give me one" means he wishes to lead her to the goddess, using the cherry phosphate as a bonus/bribe. The goddess is the boat that he was shanghaied on, where he met the soft lass with brown skin. "God before me if I'm not crazy, is my daughter" may mean that the "daughter" is just a young girl of the same or similar ethnicity of the soft lass with brown skin that reminds him of what his daughter could look like, but the 30 years would mean that his daughter would not be portrayed as a young girl, so perhaps the abstractness of the song is used to show that perhaps he is unstable, though good writing suggests using concrete, discrete language, and Beefheart definitely does in other songs like "well" and "the dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back" the fact that he found his daughter or a young girl that reminds him of his daughter brings saltwater tears to his eyes, once again referencing his life as a sailor. Perhaps the multiple references of being a father means he's in an ethnic area, and all of the women there remind him of his daughters, or could even be his daughters. Thoughts?
@nebraskan I can't find it online now, but I remember reading somewhere that the narrator hasn't actually been "lost at sea" for thirty years. The little girl is his daughter, but he has this other (black) family somewhere, the result of an affair he had when as a young sailing-man he was "shanghaied", and that's why he's been spending so much time voyaging at sea for the past thirty years - taking care of them. Which is why no-one seems to know him when he comes home now.
@nebraskan I can't find it online now, but I remember reading somewhere that the narrator hasn't actually been "lost at sea" for thirty years. The little girl is his daughter, but he has this other (black) family somewhere, the result of an affair he had when as a young sailing-man he was "shanghaied", and that's why he's been spending so much time voyaging at sea for the past thirty years - taking care of them. Which is why no-one seems to know him when he comes home now.