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from that site that toilet and bowels linked to
Oh, like in the Donovan song?
Certainly Donovan recorded a song called The Hurdy-gurdy Man. It's not clear whether he had the stringed instrument in mind when he wrote the song. Two minor pieces of evidence indicate that the song refers to the stringed hurdy-gurdy instead of the barrel organ. First, the lyrics refer to the hurdy-gurdy man "singing songs of love". The barrel organ can only play one or two songs, but the plural songs suggests that the instrument can play more than one. (Actually some versions of the barrel organ have interchangable discs or rolls which allow different tunes to be played, so this point is even more sketchy.) Second, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin reputedly played guitar on the studio recording (though no listing of musicians or instrumentation is given on the liner notes, and in some accounts he's quoted that he either didn't do it or doesn't remember doing it.) In any case it's documented that Page had an interest in the stringed hurdy-gurdy. There are unfounded rumors that a hurdy-gurdy appears on this album, and even on this song.
Pierre Imbert had a hurdy-gurdy signed by Donovan some 15 or 20 years after the recording, and it was the first hurdy-gurdy that Donovan had actually seen. He told Pierre that he had been walking on a beach in Hawaii and been visited by a vision of a man floating above the waves playing a hurdy-gurdy, and had written the first verse of the song. The other verses were a combined effort on the part of Donovan and George Harrison.
My personal theory is that Donovan used the word because he liked the alliterative quality of "hurdy-gurdy". In one verse he changes the refrain to "rolly-polly", which has the same quality, though I doubt that a song called "The Rolly-Polly Man" would have gotten quite as popular. Since he hadn't seen a hurdy-gurdy before, he probably just liked the way the word sounded. The song has also been covered by several other bands, including the Butthole Surfers. Donovan still plays it in concert.
guess i was wrong
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