Long Tall Sally

(Pg. 58 of That’s Outrageous)

My companion and I spent a Sunday afternoon driving home through a howling storm, listening to the maniacal ramblings of America’s most original rock-n-roll artist and trying our best to unscramble such lyrics as “She’s biffa specie ga.”

Susan earned my everlasting respect for picking out “You won’t do your sister’s will,” the very first time “Lucille” went sailing by. After all, I had waited fifty years and listened to hundreds of recitations, trying to in vain translate the phrase.

Every time I heard the lyric, and others equally obscure, it was as if I had overheard some sonic screech caught in one of the gigantic radio telescopes that record the pulsation of the universe in the event that someone out there was trying to communicate with us. The futility of trying to divine the secrets of another world—to come so close as to almost touch the mystery and yet be rebuffed by it each and every time—was enough to drive me mad.