M.G.M. knows how to be nasty. First they wouldn't have any group of performers called, "The Mothers." Obviously nasty. On the other hand you might notice, those of you with a fine eye for detail, that on record jackets and in their publicity the word "Mothers" gets larger and "of Invention" gets smaller. Very nasty. Second—after contracting the Mother's latest album—ABSOLUTELY FREE—written, composed, directed and collaged by Frank Zappa—M.G.M. took issue with the libtetto. M.G.M.'s 19th century bias for printed word efficacy led them to exclude the words from the album, though you hear the same words sung. Nasty, nasty . . . shades of Arnault Daniel.
...But I'm dragging my heels . . . .
...In London last week (see John Peel's PERFUMED GARDEN, this issue) Frank Zappa offered this oratorio for publication in International Times. We accepted gleefully. Frank wrote the forward and notes specially for IT.
Do you get it now? Frank Zappa is nice and M.G.M Is nasty.
There's a guerilla attack in Haiti forecast. Algeria and Morocco will be shedding each others blood by the end of the year over low grade iron ore in land located, barely and Algeria—according to an unpublished secret General Electric computerised economic cost effectiveness survey paid for by the Algerian government.
A record turnover in equities. Frank Zappa records a song with Lenny Bruce—called Don't come in me"—for his new album. International Times readers get first international peek at printed word version of ABSOLUTELY FREE. International Times gets an ad from M.G.M.—fodder for our overdraft—and M.G.M. hopes we like money enough to cool it. Nasty. Nasty all around.
Others would say: This is the all-universe energy in continual matter and life trans formations. For my part:
Read Frank Zappa's words now!
Hear Frank Zappa's sounds too!
Communication is the sharing of conscious experience.
Frank Zappa, Frank Zappa . . . .
Intellect is consciousness of energy. Artistry transfers energy; the end is sharing.
ZAP ZAP ZAPPA: read him, see him, hear him, if you don't have the time. The Mothers of Invention have released two albums—the other is FREAK-OUT—and have had two howling successes.
Herbie Cohen, the Mother's manager who wears ready-made Turkish business suits, clucks "300,000 L.P.'s sold without a minute of radio time."
Frank Zappa's songs recall a naked lunch of the American high school scene in the fifties—FLASH: NASTY EAST GEORGIA MESS COVERS HERSELF WITH CHOCOLATE SYRUP TO ATTRACT VEGATABLES. DOOT, DOOT, DOOT. . . . .
BILL LEVY
THESE are words to the songs on our new album "ABSOLUTELY FREE." This is not a reprint of the actual libretto that is published in the United States to accompany this record. It is a hasty attempt to give the British listener a chance to more fully understand the message inherent in the album.
Pauline Butcher, secretary at large, in a gruelling five hour session, was subjected to the awful task of translating the garbled nonsense on our album into a form that I hope most of you can understand.
Some of the terms, abbreviations and colloquial expressions used in the lyrics may not be familiar to Britis hlisteners. Along with the actual words to the songs this special version of the libretto will include brief technical explanations for you.
FRANK ZAPPA
The insincere ass holes who run almost everybody's country are plastic people. References to Sunset Boulevard, Pandora's Box, CIA, and Laurel Canyon, all relate tothe first youth riots in Los Angeles last year.
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States,
fellow Americans. He's been sick. Dool, root, doot.
I think his wife is going to bring him some chicken soup.
Plastic people, oh baby, you're such a drag.
I know it's hard to defend an unpopular policy once in a while.
Plastic people, oh baby, you're such a drag.
There's this guy from the C.I.A. and he's creeping around
Laurel Canyon.
A fine little girl, she waits for me.
She's as plastic as she can be
She paints her face with plastic goo
And wrecks her hair with some shampoo.
Plastic people, oh baby, you're such a drag.
Sometimes I just get tired of you honey.
I think it's your hair spray or something.
Plastic people, oh baby, you're such a drag.
I hear the sound of marching feet
Down Sunset Boulevard to Crescent Heights
And there at Pandora's Box
We're confronted with a vast quantity of plastic people.
Take a day and walk around
Watch the Nazis run your town
Then go home and check yourself
You think we're singing about someone else.
Plastis. people, oh baby, you're such a drag.
Me see a neon moon above
I searched for years and found no love
I'm sure that love will never be
A product of plasticity.
(MUMBLING FREE ASSOCIATION:)
Plastic people, your nose, your foot, your arm, plastic,
(MUMBLING FADE OUT.)
The Duke of Prunes is a surrealistic love song. Euphemistic sexual imagery popular in country blues tunes, with which many of you might already be familiar, is transmuted in this particular piece from the basic " . . . . me, suck me, till my eyes roll back baby" to "prune me, cheese me, go-kart . . . " or something like that. This song is very strange.
A moon beam through the prune
In June
Reveals your chest
I see your lovely beans
And in that magic go-kart
I bite your neck
The cheese I have for you my dear
Is real and very new.
(ONCE THROUGH SLOWLY, ONCE THROUGH FASTLY.)
Prunes (pa-da-dah)
If it's a real prune
Knows no cheese (cheeky chanky, cheeky chanky)
And stands (oh no)
Taller stronger than any tree (or bush)
And I know the love I have for you
Will grow and growand grow, I think
And so my love I offere you
A heart that is estrong
A prune that is true.
A dashing duke is attempting to pick up two cheer leaders
In a parking plot who bash him in the face with a rock
leading to Amnesia.
(MUMBLING FREE ASSOCIATION)
Duke, duke, duke, duke
Prunes, prunes, prunes, prunes, prunes.
What is your name?
It's nice to see you again
You'll be my duchess of prunes
My duchess of prunes.
A moon beam through the prune
In June
Reveales your chest
I see your lovely beans
And in that magic go-kart
I bite your neck
The cheese I have for you my dear
Is real and very new.
Prunes pa-da-dah
If they are fresh prunes pa-da-dah
Knows no cheese
And they just lie there drowning and sickening
And it's . . . oh I dunno
LAH-H-H
And I know I think the love I have for you will never end
Well, maybe
And so my love, I offer you
A love that is strong, a prune that is true.
This is the exciting part, this is like the Supremes
See the way it builds up, Baby, baby.
My prune is true
My love for you my dear, etc.
Ooh-ah, mumble mumble
Free association, bull shit . . .
The best clue to this song might lie in the fact that people who are inactive in a society . . . people who do not live up to their responsibilities are vegetables. I feel that these people, even if they are inactive, apathetic or unconcerend at this point, can be motivated toward a more useful sort of existence. I believe that if you call any vegtable that it will respond to you.
This is a song about vegetables
They keep you regular
They're real good for you.
Call any vegetable, call it by name
Call one today, when you get off the train
Call any vegetable and the chances are good
That the vegetable will respond to you.
Some people don't go for prunes
I've always found that if they . . .
Call any vegetable, pick up your phone
Think of a vegetable, lonely at home
Call any vegetable and the chances are good
That the vegetable will respond to you.
Roota-bay-ay-ayga
Roota-bay-ay-ayga
Roota-bay-ay-ayga
A prune isn't really a vegetable, cabbage is a vegetable
No-one will know if you don't want to let them know
No-one will know less it's you that might tell them so.
Call and they'll come to you, covered with dew
Vegetabes dream of responding to you
Standing there shining and pround by your side
Holding your joint while the neighbours decide
Why is a vegetable something to hide?
Young pumpkin dances and sweats
round a desk leading to Amnesia.
A lot of people don't bother about their friends in
the vegetable kingdom
They think, what can I say? What can a person like
myself say to a vegetable?
But the answer is simple my friends.
Just call and tell them how you feel about muffins,
pumpkins, wax paper, caledonias, mahogony,
elbows . . . green things in general
And soon a new rapport
You and your new little green and yellow buddies
grooving together . . .
Maintaining your coolness together . . .
Worshipping together in the church of your choice . . .
ONLY IN AMERICA
Call any vegetable, call it by name
Call one today when you get off the train
Call any vegetable and the chances are good
That the vegetable will respond to you.
Oh no! Can you see them responding?
The pumpkin is breathing hard
Huffa-puffa, huffa-puffa, huffa-puffa.
What a pumpkin!
On this side of the album there are two versions of this set of lyrics. This version which opens side two is in effect an abstraction (in advance of) the set of lyrics which close side two. The opening lines of "One, two, buckle my shoe' and "doopie, doopie' are derived from a time called "My Little Red Book".
One, two, buckle my shoe, do-doot, doopie.
I tried to find how my heart could be so blind
(Want to buy some pencils) dear?
How could I be fooled just like the rest?
You came . . . on strong
With your fast car and vour Bran Flakes,
Soft voice and your sad eyes,
I fell for the whole thing.
I don't regret having met up with a girl who breaks hearts
like they were nothing at all
I've done it too, now I know just what it feels like . . .
(ORGASMIC ENSEMBLE STATEMENT)
Status Back Baby is a song about young acne America and their daily trials and tribulations. It is unfortunate that many young Americans really do worry about losing status at their high school. De Molay is a religious youth organisation in the United States. A Pom Pom Girl is a young lady who cuts strips of crepe paper all week long after school to make an object known as a pom pom, which is a puffy ball composed of strips of crepe paper. After she has manufactured her own pom pom, she will go to the football game and jump high in the air with her pom pom in her hand shouting, as she does so, these immortal words: "We've got a team that's on the beam, that's relly hep to the jive. Come on tigers, let's skin 'em alive." Or, "Push 'em back, push 'em back. We like it, sissboombah." Then they drink beer and get pregnant in the back of somebody's car.
I'm losing status at the high school
lused to think that it was my school, wah-wah-wah-wah.
I was the king of every school activity,
But that's no more, oh mama, what will become of me?
The other night we painted posters
We played some records by the Coasters, wah-wah-wah-wah,
A bunch of pom-pom girls looked down their nose at me
They had painted tons of posters, I'd painted three.
I hear the secret whispers everywhere I go,
My school spirit is at an all time low
(CHARMING INSTRUMENT INTERLUDE)
I'm losing status at the high school
I used to think that it was m yschool, wahwah-wah-wah-wah.
Everyone in town knows I'm a handsome football star
I sing and dance and spray my hair and drive a shiny car.
I'm friendly and I'm charming, I belong to De Molay
I'm going to try like mad to get my status back today.
My status back baby,
Status back baby
Status back baby
Status back baby.
Uncle Bernie's Farm is a song about ugly toys and the people who make them. Implied here is the possiblitiy that the people who buy the ugly toys might be as ugly as the toys themselves.
There's a bomb to blow your mommy up
A bomb for your daddy too
A baby doll that burps and pees
A case of airplane glue
A hungry plastic troll
To scar your buddy's arm
A box of ugly plastic things
Marked Uncle Bernie's Farm.
There's a little plastic congress,
There's a nation you can buy
There's a doll that looks like mommy
She''l do anything but cry.
He' sa funny little man
Push a button and ask for money
There's a dollar in his hand
We've got to send Santa Claus back to the Rescue Mission
Christmas don't make it no more
Don't you know that murder and destruction
Scream the toys in every store
There's a man who runs the country
There's a man who tried to think
And they're all made out of plastic
When they melt, they start to stink.
There's a book with smiling children
Nearly dead with Christmas joys
And smiling in his office
Is the creep who makes the toys.
MUMBLING FREE ASSOCIATION)
We got this car when hits the wall
You can see the guy dying inside
Got the little plastic puddles of blood
Plastic intestine stuck back into his stomach
Sound effects brass nuckles,
39 Chevy, etc. etc.
(MUMBLING FREE ASSOCIATION)
Son of Suzie Creamcheese is a stirring saga of a young groupie. Her actions are all motivated by a desire to be "in" at all times. Hence the drug abuse (blowing her mind on too much Kool-aid: acid . . . Stealing her boyfriends's stash: a hidden supply of drugs . . . and leaving Los Angeles for a protest march in Berkeley).
Suzy Creamcheese, oh baby
What's got into you?
Suzy you were such a sweety
Yeh, yeh ,yeh,
Once you were my one and only
Yeh, yeh, yeh,
Blew your mind on too much Kool-ald,
Yeh, yeh, yeh,
Took my stash and left me lonely
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Suzy Creamcheese, oh baby
What's got into you?
Suzy Creamcheese, oh momma,
What's got into you?
Got to find my Suzy Creamcheese
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Think I'll go and strat my car
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Really dig her, she's so freaky,
Yeh, yeh, yeh,
Heard the heat knows where you are
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Suzy Creamcheese, oh baby
What's got into you?
Suzy Creamcheese, oh momma,
What's got into you?
Cruised the strip and went to Canter's
Yeh, yeh, yeh,
Suzy Creamcheese, please come home
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Vito said she split for Berkeley
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Protest marching Styroloram
Yeh, yeh, yeh.
Suzy Creamcheese, oh baby,
What's got into you?
Suzy Creamcheese, oh momma,
What's got into you?
Brown Shoes Don't Make It is a song about the people who run the government, the people who make the laws that keep you from living the kind of life you know you should lead. These unfortunate people manufacture inequitable laws and ordinances, perhaps unaware of the fact that the restrictions they place on the young people in a society are a result of their own hidden sexual frustrations. Dirty old men have no business running your country.
Brown shoes don't make it
Brown shoes don't make it
Quit school, why fake it
Brown shoes don't make it.
T.V. dinner by the pool
Watch your brother grow a beard
Got another year of school
You're O.K. He's too weird.
Be a plumber, he's a bummer
He's a bummer every summer.
Be a royal plastic robot
For a world that doesn't care
Smile at every ugly
Shine your shoes and cut your hair
Be a jerk and go to work
Be a jerk and go to work
Do your job, do it right,
Life's a ball, T.V. tonight
Do you love it, do you hate it?
There it is, the way you made it.
(SIMULATED VOMIT SOUND EFFECTS)
A world of secret hungers
Perverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In a drawer, in a desk, by Nauga Hyde Chair.
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office
Hratche-plche, Hratche-plce,
Hratche-plche, Hratche-plce,
We see in the back ol the City Hall mind
The dream of a girl about thirteen
Off with her clothes and into a bed
Where she tickles his fancy all night long
His wife's attending an Orchid Show
She squeeled for a week to get him to go
But back in the bed his teenage queen
Is rocking and rolling and acting obscene
Baby, baby,
Hratche-plce, Hratche-plce
Baby, baby
Hratche-plce, Hratche-plce
And he loves it, loves it
It curls up his toes
She bites his fat neck
And it lights up his nose
But he cannot be fooled
Old City Hall Fred
She's nasty, she's nasty,
She digs It in bed.
(ORGASMIC ENSEMBLE STATEMENT NO. 2)
Do It again and do it some more
That does it, by golly, it's nasty for sure
Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty,
She's only thirteen and she knows how to nasty.
She's a dirty young mind corrupted, corroded
She's thirteen today and I hear she gets loaded
p-pum m-mmm, p-pum m-mmm,
P-pum m-mmm, p-bum
If she were my daughter I'd . . .
What would you do daddy?
If she were my daughter I'd . . .
What would you do daddy?
If she were my daughter I'd . . .
What would you do daddy?
Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again, oh baby,
Smother that girl in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again,
She's my teenage baby and she turns me on
I'd like to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn
Going to smother my daughter in chocolate syrup and boogie
Till the cows com ehome.
Time to go home, Madge is on the phone
Gotta meet the Guerney's and a dozen grey attorneys
T.V. dinner by the pool
I'm so glad I finished school
Life is such a ball, I run the world from City Hall.
(INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE)
America Drinks and Goes Home is an unsubtle parody of adult conduct in neighbourhood cocktail lounges in America. The humour is aimed at (1) the type of music your parents like to listen to, (2) the manner in which they like to have it performed (the insincerity of the night-club crooner in his closing address to the alcoholics at the bar), (3) the manner in which the audience persists in talking above the level of the music while it is being performed (which belies their disrespect as an art and for anyone involved in the performance of music).
This is a special request. I hope you enjoy it.
I tried to find ho wmy heart could be so blind dear
How could I be fooled just like the rest
You came on strong with your fast car and your class ring
Soft voice and your sad eyes, I fell for the whole thing.
I don't regret having met up with a girl who breaks hearts
like they were nothing at all.
I have done it too, now I know just what feels like,
And (just like I said) there's no regrets.
It's now time to close. I hope you've had as much fun
as we have. Don't forget the jam session Sunday.
Mandy Tension will be by, playing his xylophone troupe.
It'll be a ot of fun. Monday night is the Dance Contest
Night. Twist Contest. We give away peanut butter and
jelly. I hope we've played your requests, the songs
you like to hear. Last call for alcohol. Drink it up
folks. Wonderful. Nice to see you Bob. How is it going?
Wonderful. Nice to see you Oh Bill Bailey, we'll get to
that tomorrow. Caravan with drum solo? Right
We'll do that. Wonderful. Nice to see you again. Yeh,
la, la, la, Down at the Pompadour A-go-go
Vo-do-de-o peepee
Shoobe-doot n-dadada, ada-da-dahhh
Nya-da-da, nya-da-da.
'Nite All.