In the mid 1950s, after Frank Zappa moved from San Diego to Lancaster, California, he and Captain Beefheart (a/k/a Don Van Vliet; born Don Vliet) met while attending the same high school. The two found they had a similar taste in music, and quickly bonded over a shared love of blues, doo-wop, and R&B records. After graduation, Frank enrolled in Antelope Valley Junior College, which Don also attended for a semester. In either late 1958 or early 1959, they recorded material at the school using a portable reel-to-reel machine. One of the songs was called “Lost in a Whirlpool,” which was written by Zappa (music) and Vliet (lyrics).

During a 1989 interview, FZ talked about the tune and the Antelope recording.

“Lost in a Whirlpool” was taped on one of those tape recorders that you have in a school in the audio/visual department. We went into this room, this empty room at the junior college in Lancaster, after school, and got this tape recorded, and just turned it on. The guitars are me and my brother (Bobby Zappa) and the vocal is Don Vliet.

The story of “Lost in a Whirlpool” goes back even farther. When I was in high school in San Diego in ‘55, there was a guy who grew up to be a sports writer named Larry Littlefield. He, and another guy named Jeff Harris, and I used to hang out, and we used to make up stories, little skits and stuff, you know, dumb little teenage things. One of the plots that we cooked up was about a person who was skindiving—San Diego’s a surfer kind of an area—skindiving in the San Diego sewer system [laughter], and talking about encountering brown, blind fish. [laughter] It was kind of like the Cousteau expedition of its era. [laughter] So, when I moved to Lancaster from San Diego, I had discussed this scenario with Vliet, and that’s where the lyrics come from. It’s like a musical manifestation of this other skindiving scenario.

Frank added that the recording is “the earliest tape that I have a copy of, from when I first started taping stuff.”

“Lost in a Whirlpool” sat in the Zappa vault for decades, but eventually saw release on the posthumously issued compilation, The Lost Episodes (1996).

Another perspective on “Lost in a Whirlpool,” from the liner notes of The Lost Episodes:

This spectacular item, according to FZ, probably marks the recorded blues-singing debut of the teenaged, yet-to-be-christened Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet. It was taped in an empty classroom at Antelope Valley Jr. College in Lancaster, California, with FZ on lead guitar (an instrument with which he had been acquainted for only about six months), and Frank’s former guitar teacher, brother Bobby, on rhythm guitar. (Bobby, FZ noted, later abandoned music and entered the Marines “in order to not be anything like his brother.”) It was recorded on an old Webcor reel-to-reel that, FZ fondly remembered, “just happened to be sitting there waiting to be plundered—maroon, with the green blinking eye.” The tale of a lover spurned in rather surreal fashion, “Whirlpool’s” lyrics were improvised by Vliet, who begins with an arresting parody of a (female?) blues singer. After a few lines, the essential vocal personality of incipient Beefheart becomes apparent. Listeners with an ear for metaphor and a penchant for “interpreting” lyrics might be advised not to burrow too deeply here. The whirlpool in question is one that is commonly found, and regularly employed, in modern households. Said Vliet: “Frank and I had a good time. We were just fooling around.”

 
An additional song, parodying the Bridey Murphy tale, was captured on the same day as “Lost in a Whirlpool,” but remains unreleased.

Frank and Don continued to collaborate, periodically, through the mid ‘70s. Their most famous team-up was for Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica (1969), which Zappa produced. The seminal double album was recently reissued by Third Man Records.
 

‘Bongo Fury’ photo shoot, 1975.

8mm footage of Don Vliet, shot by Frank Zappa around the time “Lost in a Whirlpool” was recorded, was incorporated into FZ’s video for “G-Spot Tornado” from Jazz From Hell (1986).
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Metal Man Has Won His Wings’: Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa’s early ‘60s R&B band, the Soots
Captain Beefheart loses his shit during tumultuous 1975 gig opening for Frank Zappa