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
AIM-9 Sidewinder used air-to-air missile in the West, with more than 110,000 missiles produced for the U.S. and 27 other nations, of which perhaps one percent have been used in combat. It has been built under license by some other nations including Sweden, and can even equip helicopters, such as the Bell AH-1Z Viper. The AIM-9 is one of the oldest, least expensive, and most successful air-to-air missiles, with an estimated 270 aircraft kills in its history of use. When firing a Sidewinder, NATO pilots use the brevity code FOX-2. The United States Navy hosted a 50th-anniversary celebration for the Sidewinder in