The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite and laughs at his own inability to pronounce that correctly, which Mike Mills kept trying to get him to do. Stipe says he loved Dr. Seuss as a kid but always pronounced his name the wrong way. The song's complete title is not featured in the lyrics, but there is the line "the sidewinder sleeps in a coil" as well as the later line "the sidewinder sleeps on its back". A sidewinder is a species of rattlesnake ("Crotalus cerastes"), and also an antique style of telephone, with a winding handle on the side. The lyrics frequently refer to making and
The Sidewinder (composition) success of the track led to similar themes being used on subsequent albums by Morgan and others: "it also established a more or less unbreakable pattern for future LPs, a bold, funky opener [...] followed by half a dozen forgettable blowing themes". The Sidewinder (composition) "The Sidewinder" is a composition by Lee Morgan. It was first recorded for Morgan's Blue Note album of the same name, on December 21, 1963, and has become a jazz standard. The name of the composition, according to Morgan, came from "the 'bad guy' on television", not the snake. Bars 17–18 of the 24-bar composition