Rest in peace (if that's the right word), Captain Beefheart. When I was in college, I thought my boyfriends were the only people in the world who owned your records. I thought Trout Mask Replica was the strangest thing I had ever heard. I wished I'd invented the pseudonyms of your band members: Zoot Horn Rollo, the Mascara Snake.

The boyfriends and I used to quote snippets of your lyrics like secret code:

Person 1: Hi, Ella.

Person 2: Hi, Ella Guru.

Person 3: Hi, yella. Hi, red. Hi, blue, she blew.

Person 1: Hi, Ella; hi, Ella Guru.

I can't say I liked your songs, but they were influential--if one thinks of influential as weirdly pervasive and/or culturally insidious. You were in the air, and we breathed you in like second-hand pot smoke. Boyfriends enjoyed playing your records at moments when I least wanted to hear them. I forgive you, and them, and I miss you all terribly. Last night, in central Maine, one of those middle-aged boys played Ice Cream for Crow while the teenager sat indifferently on the couch talking about the challenges of Photoshopping a giraffe head onto a duck body . . . not because he despises you but because you're just the regular soundtrack that parents play while they're washing dishes. A comedown. Still, no one can take away the fact that you recorded the best version of "Diddy-Wah-Diddy" ever. I think I'll go listen to it now.