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
Trinket snake Trinket snake The trinket snake ("Coelognathus helena") is a nonvenomous constrictor species of colubrid snake native to south Central Asia. The specific name of this beautiful snake, "helena", may be a reference to the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy. "C. helena" is found in Sri Lanka, southern India, Pakistan (Sindh), Nepal, and Bangladesh. Its type locality is "India: Vishakhapatnam" (Daudin, 1803). "C. helena" has the following scalation. The rostral is a little broader than deep, and visible from above. The suture between the internasals is much shorter than that between the prefrontals. The frontal is as