(Lord Buckley, LP, Straight STS 1054, September 15, 1969)
Produced and Engineered by Lyle Griffin
Executive Producer: Herb Cohen
Edited by Frank Zappa
Written by Lord Buckley
Cover by Cal Schenkel
Originally recorded in 1956
I'd like to do one of the most unusual stories in storydom.
It's about a hero in evil.
A hero in evil called "The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade".
The Marquis de Sade, as you know, was a very royal French nobleman,
from a very wealthy family, that dug the chicks.
He liked to ball from the early bright right around the clock
and then make it some more.
When he said, "Marie, come here", and she didn't—Boom!
He didn't like no waitin' you understand what I mean?
He was a very interesting cat.
As a matter of fact there was one time when he was wanted everywhere but he,
brrrrt, snuck in anyway.
A real wild stud.
He was sixty-four years old when he swooped off this satellite
and he spent twenty-three years in the slammer,
and if that ain't bad-rappin' you hip me!
And he went to all odds and ends to prove his philosophy.
He said if you're cuttin' down a real crazy, wild, country road,
on a cool, pretty day, and the breeze is comin' on
and ricocheting the sweet perfume of the wild flowers of life,
and you feel a halleluyah call in your soul,
and you swing around the corner,
and there in front of the tree stands a pretty little chick with a lattice petty-coat,
and you never dug her before in your LIFE,
and you walk right up to her and you say,
"Baby, it's you and me, behind the tree!"
And she say "No".
SHE'S GOIN' AGAINST NATURE!
And any cat know you can't do that!
Now you take one look at my television face
and you got to know I didn't get all these miles on my puss in one lifetime.
You got to get hip to the fact that I'm a reincarnated cat!
And I knew The Mark real cool!
Mark was one of them cats like to enjoy, you understand.
He rent a small band and get five or six chicks and a few gallons of juice
and swing up a storm and the neighbors was gettin' green-eyed
and blow the whistle on the poor cat and BAD RAP 'IM EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!
Now you take the case of Ella Louise Louise Louise.
This is case numer 4229, Book Five, Chapter Eleven.
She's that little chambermaid chick.
It's in history.
Now he knew this chick was sufferin' from the gold shorts up front,
so he pressed a fin in her palm,
said, "Baby, let's split up to my pad, we'll suck up a little juice,
and hear a little wax, and go a little crazy!"
She said, "Coo, coo!"
So she took his wing and, brrrt, they split toward the pad.
And got half way there and just HAPPENED to pass The Birch and Rod Store.
So The Mark said,
"Scuze me a minute, Suger".
He swung in and picked up on twelve miniature-styled,
three-colored, silk-tassled, circus day, children's pony, buggy whips.
Put 'em under his wing, brrrrt,
and made the pad and THEY BAD-RAPPED THE POOR CAT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!
Now why did he pick up on those twelve long, mean, thin ones!?!
He knew this chick was a sqare.
He knew she was an octagon head.
He knew she was not with the scene.
And he knew it was the WRONG thing to do to put such a square chick
up against such a tight stud as he was on the bed of high sensuous consequence
without alerting the chick a little bit
and THEY DONE BAD-RAPPED HIM EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!
I should like to give you, in hip, an example of the Marquis de Sade's sense of humor.
This is one of the stories of his humorous shots.
And there are a lot of times when you hear something wild,
something crazy, something insane, and, you see,
the humorous thing will reach such a high altitude that you say to yourself,
"Now that's, that's no longer funny".
But if it is humor and you proceed further
and instead of ending you ne-gate under the license of humor,
you find out there's a whole new strata up there.
'Cause humor goes in a complete circle like the world.
Humor is the isle of the soul.
Here it is.
There were two chicks and two studs sittin' in the petty-coats of Paris
in a little gin joint, suckin' up a little juice and cuttin' up
the Marquis de Sade's last gang bang.
One cat said to the other,
"Man that Mark is bad! He's a wild cat!"
He said, "Are you hippin' me? I'm hippin' you!"
He say, "What did you like in that last party?"
He say, "I dug the scene",
he say, "Man, when them twelve naked chicks jumped out of that giant fish bowl
and split up that cherry tree with that mad puppy dog!"
"Yeah, I never saw chicks jump so fast in all my born days".
Other cat say, "Yeah, I liked that one, but the one that really knocked me out",
he say, "was the one of, uh, in the big cage there with the gorilla,
with the go-rilla and the fine-tailed blonde.
And that little old fine-tailed blonde,
she dancin' a ring-a-ding-ding and a dong-dong-dong.
And the go-rilla, he's sittin' over there and ain't makin' a move.
Ain't movin' a hair, see.
And the little fine-tailed blonde she ding-ding-ding and ignorin' the gorilla.
But the go-rilla know the blonde know the go-rilla in there!
And they cuttin' up and so on and so forth...
All of a sudden, BAM!
The door swung open and in stomped a stud about nine foot two,
built like a mortal anvil, great big cat with a face like a diamond hatchet,
with rings on all fingers and money pouring out of his pockets.
Looked like a cat with a steel rectum!
Come swingin' into the scene,
and he shook these studs up so hard,
that he hit their subconscious button so strong
that they found themselves standing on their feet with a deep low bow,
and this cat joined them and they never dug him before in their born days!
Turned out to be Prince Minski!
Prince Minski was a cat that been with it,
he gave it away, he took it back, he put it down,
he picked it up, he jumped it, he tumped it, he ripped it,
he wrapped it, he tapped it, he papped it,
he rigged it, he gigged it, he danged it, he donged it,
he blanged it, he jumped around, he split it,
he made every mother scene there was to make!
And this cat is not spending his money!
He's comin' on like Vesuvius reachin' for Pompei!
He's BLOWIN' his gold!
And the number six busboy, been waitin' on the number two waiter,
is pickin' up eleven-hundred-damn-two-ninety-six dollars a minute in short change,
so you KNOW the joint is jumpin'!
And this big steel-tailed Minski,
he's sittin' there suckin' up all this juice
and blowin' all this gold around and finally
he turned to these two pretty little chicks and these two wild studs and say,
"You know I dig you two chicks and you two cats.
You look like you with it all the way".
They say, "We dig you, too, sir, 'cause you know how to live.
You know how to lay your gold out, man, live it up, that's what we say".
"Yeah, that's right".
Say, "I got a big party pad over the hill here.
Everything to have a good time with".
He say, "How'd you like to join me out?"
They say, "How long can we stay?"
He say, "Long as you like!"
So they paid the tab and they split out of the joint
and these two studs and two chicks,
they're expecting this wild stud to call a golden chariot
and the twelve horses and out-riders and all that jazz.
Instead of that he turns out to be a Mohican head
and takes right off through the mother primeval
and does about ninteen tail- breakin' miles over hill and dale
and if you turned 'em loose an hour after they started
they'd never found their way back.
So they're forced to go with the cat.
And finally come to a black lake with a blue boat on it.
And Minski say, "Get in!"
Now these cats is all shook up.
Their pants is ripped.
They're sick. They're tired. They're hungry.
They are SO HUNGRY!
They'd eat a caterpillar sandwich like you or I do ham 'n eggs.
They are starvin' to death, but they with this mad mother,
and they don't want to, you know, make no trouble with him.
So they with him.
And these two studs get in the front of the boat,
and Minski take the tiller.
BOOM.
The boat shoots out into the middle of the lake.
And the two cats sayin', "Man, I'm so hungry!"
"You hungry?" "Man, I'm about ready to die!"
"You body ache?" "My body aches so bad", say, "I don't know".
Say, "What? The cat's cool.
He ain't made no bad move yet".
"No, he ain't make no bad move".
Say, "Da cat's alright".
Say, "What's that out on the water?"
Say, "It looks like a cloud tied to the water".
The other cat says, "Man, can't you see?"
He say, "Whadda ya mean?"
He say, "That's a WALL!"
And it WAS a wall!
It was a wall to stop all walls!
It was a wall about eleven-hundred-damn-ninety-two foot high.
A cloud-pushin' mother and God knows how thick.
With a small uranium door in it, you know what I mean.
And the boat slide up to it and Minski take his big old long stalk leg
and he kick the big button and the door swung open,
and WHOOOOSH,
they go through and KABANG
that mother slammed like doomsday's break!
And they finally come to another big deep underground.
BOOM.
That one slam and they come to a drawbridge.
BRRRRT, up and down.
They cross up back.
Now they come to a wall so tall it take seventeen French acrobats
to see the top of thismother with a small rang-a-dang door in it.
And they open that door and,
BOOM,
they slipped through and Boom that mother slammed
and the minute it did he turned to them and he said:
"I'm the baddest cat in this world! There ain't nothin' I ain't done".
He said,
"I'm a cross-loader, and a hanger'upper, and a slip- slider, and a double-dealer".
And he say,
"I made every bad move there is to make".
He said, "I've done in my brother.
I've done in my sister.
I've done in my DONE-INS!"
"I been all over this here world studying scientifically how to be a bad cat".
"I'm the King of Bad Cats!"
"But", he say, "You my buddy cats.
Sit down".
BOOM.
They did.
And the minute they sit down they did a real wild take.
'Cause they found out that the chairs they was sittin' in
was composed of skeleton bones!
So they did a four-way take on him.
Say, "I did in them cats last week".
Then he say, "I suppose you cats is hungry".
They say, "If you ready, we ready,
but if you ain't ready we ain't ready, but if you's ready,
we's ready, but if you ain't ready we ain't READY!"
He said,
"Well, I got a big feast prepared for you cats".
He said, "I know you hungry".
They say, "We is hungry, sir, there ain't no lyin' about that".
He said, "Well, I know you is gourmet heads".
They say, "We do enjoy good food".
"Well," he say, "We might as well go in and dine. Come with me".
So he open a big old door
and there's a room about forty feet wide and eighty-five feet long
in the middle of which stood a banquet table that was loaded with Goody City!
It had a hundred and twenty-two Japanese wing-ding dinners
and a hundred and twenty-seven Christmas dinners,
and twenty-two Thanksgiving dinners,
and Chinese lung-gow,
and all them goodies just steamin'
and these cats took a bang of that and almost passed right out on the silver,
and they were flippin'!
And about twenty-seven chicks naked as jays swingin' uranium trays
and deranium trays and who-ranium trays and puttin' more goodies on this table.
So Minski, this big steel-tailed stud,
he walked down to the end of the table.
And he's standin' there.
They're standing over at the right hand side of the table
about four feet away from it.
And about six feet away from the wall
in back of them was five chairs and he say,
"Chairs! Come here!"
And the chairs went, mmmmmmmmmmm.
So he says, "Siddown!"
BOOM!
And they did.
And when they sat down they really did the take to end all takes,
for they found out that the chairs they was sittin' on was composed of CHICKS!
Carefully woven together!
About this time Minski say,
"Table! Come here!"
And the whole table go MMMMMMMMMMMMM.
And they look at the table and they find out the same gig is goin' there
but by this time they are so hungry
they are so starved to get something in their belly,
make the brain work, that's all,
get some fuel going there, make the wheels turn,
don't worry about a thing.
You got all this food.
We're gonna eat.
We'll talk it over later!
So Minski sit down here
and by this time he knocked out about nine bottles of juice.
He said, "Well, whatcha think of these goodies?"
And they say, "Crazy! It is so insane crazy!
I never smelled anything so aromatic in all my born days!"
Say, "Insane, crazy!"
And he say,
"Well, I know you are gourmet heads
so I got somethin' prepared for you that is wild".
They say, "We know it, sir".
And he said, "Furthermore, let me hip you to this..."
"What's that, sir?"
He say, "You see all these goodies on this table?"
They say, "Yeah".
He say, "You see all these culinary effects,
with smells and all these wild colors?"
And they say, "Yes, sir".
He said,
"Well, I'm gonna hip you further that when you take your first bite
you ain't gonna dig it, but surely enough,
if you take that second bite, zap, you're hooked!"
They said, "We know it, sir".
He said,
"Each and every piece of great crazy food
that you see on this table is composed of one thing and one thing only:
THE HUMAN FLESH!"
Brbbdummaadumadummmmmmaaaaaaaa!!!!!
"Well, I suppose it can't be no different than stuffed chicken!"
He say, "Pass me that rump of small boy over there!"
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I wish you could be here on this beautiful day
to see this sun shining on this magnificent avenue.
All the fair ladies about and all the handsome gentlemen are here
for this is the day that everyone is saluting
that celebrated international figure,
Governor Slugwell!
("Trombone" salute)
Ladies and gentlemen,
I can see him now down in front of the court house.
Looks like he's getting into this, yes, he is,
getting into a magnificent automobile there.
Oh, it's shining so bright into the sunshine
and the people are all gazing around trying to say hello to him
and then suddenly an immense crowd gathering.
He's got two blondes on each arm,
a king-size boutonniere in his buttonhole,
and a pound of trays in the tool box.
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!!
Thank you, my friends.
("Trombone" salute)
(Irish cop voice) "Lady, will you stand back.
You're trying to get yourself killed.
This is a parade, my dear woman, you're gonna...."
"I'm the mother of five children!"
"Peanuts, popcorn, hotdogs, get 'em..."
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!!
"Thank you, my friends!"
("Trombone" salute)
Ladies and gentlemen!
Coming right down in the middle of the boulevard
with its golden sunshine shining down on their magnificent uniforms
is the pride of the nation
The Seven-O-Seven Elk's Drum Corps NEGRO!
Wham-bam, Wham-bam.
Roopety, boopety, boop!
Bam-bam, a roop, bam-bam, a roop, bam-bam.
A roopety, boopety, boop. POW!
("Trombone" salute)
(Irish Cop voice) "Lady will you stand back there.
That's the last time I'm going to tell you, now."
"Hot dogs! Get 'em while they're red hot!"
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!!
"Thank you, my friends!"
"Now ladies and gentlemen, here we are up at the stadium.
Good heavens! I know I sound excited, but I can't help it.
There's so much excitement in the air.
Ahh, this is such a tremendous night.
You can feel the excitement.
You can feel the enthusiasm jumping.
There must be five hundred thousand people here at the stadium
as the Governor's car swings through into the auditorium gates
and right in the middle of the field you can hear these people yell,"
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!!
("Trombone" salute)
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, time is short.
I'm up here in the observation booth,
and we justhave time now to turn this over
to Senator Gridley down on the platform
where he'll introduce this magnificent political diety."
"My friends, I would like to say that never in my political history
have I ever enjoyed the privilege of presenting such a great beloved man.
A new man, being not only beloved in this fair country,
but beloved the world over. His name,
a name that's imprinted on every heart in America,
Governor Slingwell Slugwell!"
HOORAY!!
("Trombone" salute)
Pam-pam, pam-pam.
Roopety, boopety, boop.
A roop, be-boop, a roop, be-boop
A roopety, boopety, boop. Pow!
("Trombone" salute)
"My friends, I would like to say that, er,
I have never before been greeted by such, uh, warmth, and, er, beauty.
(I'll be there in a moment, Mary.)
"Now, I would like to say that things are going so well,
and so, er, beautiful with me.
My Rolls Royces are running fine.
Three more oil wells came in.
I just bought the waterworks last week.
I've had the gasworks for quite some time.
And things are going at such a magnificent rate,
that I believe that it is possilbe for each and every member of this great state,
the employees association, shall receive a substantial raise in salary amounting to...
("Trombone" fanfare)
Pam-pam, pam-pam.
Roopety, boopety, boop, ba-boop,
a roop, ba-boop, a roop, ba-boop.
Roopety, boopety, boop
("Trombone" fanfare)
"... and seventy-five cents.
And I would like to say that the, uh,
I wish you all a happy, happy time,
and you'll be hearing from me next very, very soon.
Thank you and good night."
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!!
("Trombone" fanfare)
HOORAY!
"Hello, Charlie."
"Yes, that's right..."
"That's him."
(Train whistle)
HOORAY FOR SLUGWELL!!
("Trombone" and out)
M'Lords and Ladies of the Royal Court,
Edgar, the swinging Edgar Allen Poe's
magnificent torch, "The Raven,"
as translated into the semantic of the hip.
It's a Bugbird.
And like I say, Poe -
Eddie Allen Poe was a swinger.
He loved to en-joy that good whiskey
and chase them little ladies all over the place,
undstand what I mean?
Now, you see Poe didn't want that bird,
he didn't need the bird,
he didn't dig the bird,
he didn't send for the bird,
he didn't even know what aviary the bird came from.
If they've knocked the bird on him post paid
he wouldn't have dug it.
'Cause he was hung in front
for a chick by the name of Lenore,
who had already swoop the satellite.
But that didn't bug Eddie.
He's still knockin' that torch and coal on there,
say: "Can they see me in Flip City?"
But just like I say, so many times,
when you don't want the bird,
when you don't need the bird,
when you haven't got the first possible use for the bird,
vrrrrpppt, that's when you get it.
And that's what happened to poor Eddie.
I want you to picture that cat:
he's sitting in his pad, he's all spread out.
He's flipped, he's flapped, he's had it,
undastand what I mean?
He can't make it.
If he had it, he couldn't swing it
so he's sitting there goofing the cool,
ya see what I mean?
He say:
It was a real drug midnight
swoooooooooooooooah dreary
I was goofing
Beat and weary
Over many a freakish volume of forgotten score
When suddenly there came a tapping
As if some cat were gently riffing
Knocking rhythm at my pad's door.
Ah, "'tis the landlady," I muttered
On her broom she flies the rounding
Sounding for her rent
WHICH only this and nothing more
Ehh, ooh, will I ever get out of this feeling?
Emmm, emmmm,
Ah, so solid I remember,
It was in that wrought December
And it's swingin', jumpin' ember
Blew it's phantom upon the floor
Groovily I woo'd the morrow
Still hung I sought to borrow
From my book kicks
To knock the sorrow
Sorrow for my gone Lenore
For that sweet, square but swingin' maiden
Whom the fly chicks tagged Lenore
Nameless here forevermore
Oooh, man,
And the silky wear deturning [?]
Of each upper curtain
Moved me, hound me
With freakish flipples
Never dug before.
So that now to cool the beating of my ticker
I stood repeating, "'Tis some strange midnight stud
That's sounding a money beat on my pad's door.
A deuce to cool the morrow
Or some juice to drown his sorrow
Some lightweight riff this
And nothing more.
Jack!" I said, "Or Jilly, if I've crossed you.
Ha ha. Don't jump sore
For the solid truth is
This cat was napping
And so cool did you come tapping
And so light hip you came rapping
Rhythm at my pad's door
That I was scarce sure I dug you!"
Here I opened wide the slammer, Jack.
Swhoosh, I dug the breeze
And nothing more.
Ooh, what are they trying to do to me?
I'll show them—what do they think about -
get my way out of this—why they -
uuumm, what was that?
Look out, look out, look out!
Take it easy, take it easy, take it easy, take it easy!
Stoned into the darkness peering
Long I stood there
I was hung there
Flipped and fitting
King spinning dreams
No mortal cat had ever rode before
But the gasser was unbroken
Diggin' so hard my wig was goin'
But nathin' shakin' nathin's sure
Just one radar blip was goin'
The whispered word: Lenore
This I sounded and it sounded back
Swoo-Swooooh, Lenore.
This one sad lick and nothing more
Oooh, why don't they leave me alone,
why don't they leave me alone?
They're draggin' me.
I backed into my pad
Still turning
All this jazz within me burning
And again I dug the tapping
A stronger beat then was before
"Unsolid hip," says I, "I don't dig
what that is jumpin in my window lattice.
Let me get hip what the rat is
And this big flip I will explore
Let my pounders stay cool [?]
And this flip I will explore"
swoo-shoo, Jack, I drew a blank
And nothing more.
Swhoooo -
Who do they think they are to do this to me?!
Gone full out
I found the shutter
When with many a flip and flutter
In there stomped a king sized bugbird, Jack
From way back days of yore
Not a minute tipped or hung he
Not a minute brought or down he
But with stance of king and queen
He swung above my sweet pad's door
Lit upon the bust of Paris
Sat goofin' there and nothing more.
"Unsolid hip," said I, "That you're not craven
Gasser grim and beat up raven
Goofin for the night's Plutonian shore.
Swing hip me to what thy tag is
On the night's Plutonian shore."
Flip the bugbird, "Nothing more."
Solid wig me this bird to dig me
Though it copped out not upon the score
We cannot help it
Being that no single human being
Ever was so sent by seeing a wig like this
Above his pad's door
With such a tag as: Nevermore
Now you see this blasted bugbird came bugging Edgar
and gave him such a dreadful time of it
that Edgar now wants to divorce the bird.
He wants to expel the bird.
He doesn't care whether the bird knew Lenore,
Eleanor or any of these cats.
He wants to blow the bird.
So he -
I think the bird put one too many Nevermores on him.
I don't know how much they weigh
but it was just enough to flip that little Eisenglas
at the end of the fuse and vrrrpppppt,
blow the whole gig.
Poe is now flipping.
He looks at the bird and he says,
"By this lick you have flipped my meter
You nauseous gasser!
You endless repeater!
Screw before I blow my red hot stack!
Go back to your Plutonian shore
Leave no feather on my heather
Take your black jazz blown together,
Leave this pad my torch unbroken
Screw from the roost above my door!"
Flipped the bugbird, "Neezever Meezore."
Trains now leaving for
Rosedale, Goldsdale, Flipsdale,
Jam City,
Rass Cross, Criss Cross,
Ratitude, Latitude, Baditude, Hatitude,
Nogsley, Dogsley, Frogsly,
Hamstown, Bamstown,
Your Town, My Town,
Way Place, Say Place, Gay Place,
Roptne, Vautne,
Friptne,
Shniksnaw, Krascraw, Assavaw,
Avalanche,
Pownspay,
Pasville, Dasville, Hosville, Parsville,
Krende, Bende,
Senha and
Krutne ...
Now leaving on Track Twelve ...
BOARD!
Kachooo—Kachank!
Hooo-hooooo Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Last call for the diner!"
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"How we doin', Fred?" "Right on time Carlie."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Tickets, tickets, tickets."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Peanuts, soda pop, popcorn, candy!"
(faster) Kachooo—Kachank!
Hooo-hooooo Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Last call for the diner!"
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"How we doin', Fred?" "Right on time Charlie."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Tickets, tickets, tickets."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Peanuts, soda pop, popcorn, candy!"
(faster) Kachooo—Kachank!
Hooo-hooooo Hooo-hooooo Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
Last call for the diner!
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"How we doin', Fred?" "Right on time Charlie."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Tickets, tickets, tickets."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Peanuts, soda pop, popcorn, candy!"
(faster) Hooooo-ooooooooooo!! Hooooo-Hoooooo-Hooooooooooooo!!!
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Last call for the diner!"
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"How we doin', Fred?" "Right on time Charlie."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Tickets, tickets, tickets."
Huppity be, hippity bop, huppity boppity bippity bop -
"Peanuts, soda pop, popcorn, candy!"
OHHHHHH!!! AGGGGGHHH!!! EEEE!!!
CRAASSHH!!!
"Forty-seven dead and eight injured—
the worst accident in the state's history..."
Hoooooo-ooooooooo
Milords, Miladies!
A hipsemantic version of the life of one of the greatest men of all times.
And they called this cat "The Mighty Hip Einie-Sphere Gasser."
Now here was a cat who carried so much wiggage he was gigless.
He could not find a wheel to turn.
He sounded all the hubcaps within reach, but nathan shaken.
He could not connect. Hungry, his threads thin, it was a drag.
All these nowhere cats not pickin' up.
And comin' right after a big bug-size bring-down from the Nazis put on him.
You see this cat was born at Ulm, in Germany, March 14, 1879.
Now, not diggen' their lick, you see,
of these double square kicks these cats are puttin' down,
he saved his beans, and bind after bind, finally,
he swung with a Swiss passport, swooped the scene,
and lit in the land of the cool, to prove and groove with the Alpine-heads.
So now he's made it. It's a drag. And no gig.
Well, he messed around a little bit lookin' to pick up on a job here and there
and so on and so forth.
And he finally got on a light boot repair kick.
That's the only thing this cat could get to do.
It was so light that he was about to dig some boot soup,
when a buddy cat hipped him they needed a boy at Bern in the Idea Factory.
So The Hip Einie took off to sound the man for the gig.
Now, it took him fourteen hours to convince this cat
that he could tell a good idea from a bad one,
you see what I mean.
And he still would have missed if the cat hadn't heard
that he was sufferin' from the gold shorts in front.
So he really dug the gig on a pity kick.
He was such a sweet groovey cat, Earth angel,
you see what I mean,
that this short green kick cooled his livin' strain.
Now ready, really ready,
he looked around and finally zeroed in on a real fly chick,
made the legal move with her,
rang the chapel bells of joy,
and out, come swung out of this beauty spin,
came two little Mars-heads, a boy and a girl, you see.
His pad now jumped with the sweet swingin' light of life.
He delegated his routine job dues to the third frame of his subconscious mind
and proceeded to lay back into the longest goof in the history of that far out wig stretch.
He bacame the king of all space heads.
He goofed through the zonesphere,
and the vautisphere, and the routesphere,
and the hippisphere, and the flippisphere, and the zippisphere,
and the gonesphere, and the way-gonesphere.
He was way out there!
And as a matter of fact he was gone so long,
and was so far out,
that when he returned and cooled and dug what he brought back wid him,
he flipped!
Shook the poor cat so bad he couldn't leave his pad for two weeks.
Dig dat scene.
And sat in his sack every lick of the time.
It was not only too much for him, it was too much for the sphere.
This we will dig later.
Well, bein' a tough cat in front he was soon on his feet.
He sucked up a little juice, you see what I mean,
took his pen in hand and got it down on paper.
Now, this here paper that I'm goin' to hip you about caused Max Born,
a top flight physicist cat, sometime later to state,
"The greatest gasser of all sphere head book kicks is,
let me hip you, Volume Seventeen, Series Four, Yearbook of Physics,
One Nineteen Hundred and jumpin' Five!"
When this book hit the streets it hit the space-head cats hard.
No cat mentioned it for four years, and no cat moved for five years more.
Here and there a cat would dig it sayin'
"Hello,"
but it was so far out he couldn't dig anyone in his cat circle
to cut it up with, so the cat would be hung, dig?
Finally this great lick started to spark the space head grape vine,
and all the space cats were tunin' in.
One cat say,
"Yeah, I shuffled two hundred and twenty-two times,
come out the same every time, so it seem like to me that the lick is so."
Other cat say, "I'm wit you. Where do we go to surrender?"
The grape vine blew so hard they pressed a better gig on The Hip Einie.
A top hubcap and summit head of The University of Zurich,
a real cool cat, Freddy Adler,
stepped aside to make it possible with this remark: he say,
"If we can pick up this here King of Space Heads,
the great Hip Einie, let's make the scene at once.
Let this great cat take the chair.
I'll make the stool."
Ya see what I mean? He was a real hip cat.
Now, ya see what I mean,
what caused all this furor
was the fact that The Hip Einie wailed it down in the space head cats' paper,
he said in the space head cats' paper,
he say to scientific journal heads,
he say,
"You go on out to latitude seven seven seven,
and longitude four four four,
and get out there at the unveilin' of the big heater,
and,"
he say,
"you put some necklaces around that ship and hold it real cool,
anchors, anchors around like necklaces,
see what I mean, and hold it real cool,
and get out every brownie and camera that you can grab,
and lay your hands upon, and,"
he say,
"at the unveilin' of the heater start snap, snap, snap, snappin' all dem pictures.
"And, he say,
"If you snap it all the way through to the finale of that unveilin'
and switch it downstairs and put it in the treatment,"
he say,
"you gonna find on one of them pictures,
in a far-off, crazy, gone, uncouth-headed canyon,
in a way-out valley, the Great Mother Cosmo Head."
That's what he printed in the paper.
That's what flipped everybody.
Everybody flippin' all over the place.
Cats talkin' sayin' it couldn't be so, couldn't be this, couldn't be that.
Finally two English space heads picked up on it.
Said, "Man, what do you think about that Hip Einie?"
Say, "I believe the cat's with it all the way.
He look like he got it down hip pretty groovey.
Look like he got the lick straight and up to date."
He say, "Let's you and me make a little history here.
We'll tote this here news into the treasury cat
and sound him for a little expedition money
and put this scene down and make a little history."
Cat said, "Dat's right."
So they stomped in to see the treasury cat.
Said, "Whatcha say, Mr. T?"
He say, "It's cool in here. It's cool, nice 'n cool in the vaults."
He say, "Yeah, it is pretty groovey." He say, "What's on your mind, boys?"
He say, "Well, you ever hear about a cat called The Hip Einie?"
He say, "Oh, The Hip Einie. No, I never hear of that cat." Say, "What's the cat blow?"
He say, "Well, he's a scientific space head cat, you see what I mean?
And he blew a little item in the space head journal
that say that if we go out to latitude seven seven seven and longitude for forty-four,
and we put the necklace around the boat with the anchors so,
and anchor it real cool and crazy,
and get out all them brownie cameras,
ya see, and we start snap, snap, snap, snap, snappin'
at the unveilin' of the heater,
he done say dat in a far-off corner,
in an uncouth-headed canyon,
away up there in the vanse will lay the great swingin' Mother Cosmo Head."
The cat say, "That's good for the war!"
He say, "That's what I say.
That's why we're here, ya know what I mean.
We figured you'd dig the lick, you see.
Of course dat's good for the war."
Say, "I reckon I'm glad you boys come over."
He say,
"Er, uh, what's this little gig gonna cost, like expense like?"
Space head cat say,
"Oh, it ain't gonna cost nothin', like some little old, uh, two million clams."
"Man, wadda you mean stompin' in here like a madman,
jumpin' up and down, talkin' clean out 'a your skull,
tyin' this thing, this about two million clams.
Is you carzy?!?
Some cat sit down and dream up a big score dat somebody saw...
Did da cat see it?"
He say, "No."
He say, "Well, dat's what I'm tryin' to 'splain to ya.
Cat talking' completely crazy. Outta your mind."
Say, "What's the cat's real name?"
"Albert Einstein."
He said,
"Just what I thought!
Some fat-out Levantine cat gonna get you way out on that long, thin limb,
and, mmppp, snap it off."
But ya see what happened,
the space head and The Hip Einie's lick was too strong for Mr. T.
So Mr. T come up with the two million clams.
So here they swing on out here.
They get out to latitude seven seven seven and longtude four forty-four.
And they got the expedition all tight and all cool.
And they put the anchors around the boat like a necklace,
see what I mean,
hold it real cool and steady,
and boom, here come the unveiling of the big heater.
And these cats are snap, snap, snappin' pictures of this all over the place.
Snappin' it through the legs.
They're snappin' it upside down.
They're snappin' it this way.
They're snappin' it that way.
They're snappin' it.
They're double snappin' it.
They're snappin' it every way there is to snap it.
Any you see, bbrrrttt, it was over.
Wheeewww!
Downstairs they go, to develop these negatives,
see what I mean, and see what the picture was.
So they got four thousand four hundred and twenty-four pictures.
And they come down and this cat say, "Did ya see it yet?"
"No, I ain't seen it yet but we sure got some crazy jazz here.
Picked up on some wild pictures. Pretty wild pictures!"
And they go to two thousand two hundred and twenty-seven.
"Did ya see it yet?"
Say, "No, I didn't dig it yet.
No, I haven't seen it, but I know it's here someplace."
He say, "That's what I believe, too."
And they get to thirty two hundred and twenty-seven pictures and say,
"Man, it's a long time comin'!"
But he say,
"Yeah, I know that, but there are sure some crazy shots.
Let's keep goin'!"
So they get to four thousand one hundred and nine,
you see what I mean,
one of the cats say, they say,
"Well, it look like The Hip Einie put us on a bad riff here."
Say,
"Maybe the cat, you know, made a little miscalculation."
He say, "Well, we gone this far, might as well go the rest."
And on the last picture, the last picture they done developed,
in a great, big, crazy, far-off corner in an uncouth-headed chasm
was the longest neon tube these cats ever dug in their life.
The Great Cosmo-Headed Swinger!
And that's how it jumped.
But like The Hip Einie say,
"Let's play it cool, and let's play it sweet,
and let's keep thinkin' right, and we gonna be with it a long time."
Executive producer: Herb Cohen · Produced and Engineered by Lyle Griffin · Edited by Frank Zappa · Written by Lord Buckley · Cover by Cal Schnekel · Cover Photography by Ed Caraeff · Interior photograph by Ray Avery · Liner Notes by Richard Selinkoff · Digital Remastering by Bill Inglot & Ken Perry/K-Disc · Originally recorded in 1956
THE BAD-RAPPING OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE THE KING OF BAD CATS 13:55
GOVERNOR SLUGWELL 5:02
"THE RAVEN" 7:36
THE TRAIN 2:24
THE HIP EINIE 10:07Ah yes, Lord Buckley. A most immaculately hip aristocrat. He was the purest, noblest, and most beautiful hipster since the One he called The Nazz was hammered up onto a cross. He knew, as The Nazz had, that life is the world's most precious commodity, and he was determined not to waste any of his. He was largely successful. He lived furiously, making excitement when there was none to be found, ecstatically discovering beauty and gleefully creating it, having a fabulous time and showing his friends one, carefully disregarding those conventions and restrictions which existed merely because of other people's silliness, and hiding nothing. He kept his scene far-out and beautiful, his head straight and wild, and his heart wide open with a pure, sweet love for all the members of the nobility.
...if the sphere swings in its plumed height with all its garlanded beauty, then it must have a fantastic basis. So all ladies and gentlemen are Lords and Ladies, my dear...
For Sir Richard Buckley, Lord of Hip Castle, was a truly christian hipster. He loved gangster, politicians, and hopeless octagon-head squares as well as his family and the jazz musicians, hookers, artists, ghetto hipsters, beatniks, and other he dug being with.
Love is the international understanding that each and every one of us have exactly the same problems to fight.
Ah, yes, Lord Buckley. A most magnificently powerful performer. Notice the remarkable flexibility of his voice and the tight control he has over it, using the perfect tone, volume, and inflection for each word said. Listen to his genius with the language of the underground, a dialect which he called the "Hipsomatic", on The Bad-rapping of the Marquis De Sade, The King of Bad Cats, The Hip Einie, and "The Raven". Theses monologues glow with the poetry inherent in this tongue of the outcaste, the dropout, the artist, the black, and the young. Listen to the Hipsomatic translation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", and feel the beauty and power of Lord Buckley's poetry as he takes the listener with him on Poe's journey into a tortured mind. He enables the listener to experience strongly the gloom and despair found there and to feel the mind's growing panic as it is being forced to the breaking point...by itself.
It has a fantastic sense of renewal that can take any ordinary verb or movement and swing it right up to the punce of the knob in meaning...
Notice the range of Lord Buckley's wildly inventive approaches toward presenting comedy, especially on Governor Slugwell and The Train. Listen to Governor Slugwell greeting the masses just before you read the front section of your local newspaper or tune in the evening news report. Both the dignitaries and the common folk might come off the newsprint or the tube differently from the way they used to. A bit more real, perhaps. You might also notice that one or two of the news stories seem to make a little more sense.
Listen to The Train make its everyday journey to its unexpected destination. Then realize, perhaps, that it's really the most logical destination of all, and wonder why it wasn't expected. After all, both The Train and Governor Slugwell are basically funny and entertaining and strikingly original pictures of pieces of life in America.
The citizen is confused. He's tied to the machines, the washing machines, the television commercials, the time payments, the outdoing Charlie, the living better than Fred, the unhappiness.
Notice how straight, in his own way, Lord Buckley really is with whatever he's talking about—he might come on with a lot of jive at times, but never subjects his audience to any dishonesty. And notice as well, if you can, that's he's always talking about something, never just talking, that he's telling the audience something sweet and beautiful with nearly every breath, and that each insanely funny tale he spins is at the same time also an intensely moral parable.
The theatre came to me as a very religious work. It's a work of complete dedication. It's a dangerous work.
Listen to His Royal Holiness of the Far Out explain how the Marquis De Sade's neighbors got green-eyed about him having a good time and all his carryings-on and bad-rapped the poor cat every step of the way. Think about the logic of evil and the logic of good, and about how much difference there really is between them.
Listen closely as His Lordship recounts the story of the dinner-party which The King of Bad Cats gave for the Marquis' buddies. It is possible that the listener might discover something about people who sell out openly and who are able to live with evil; his concept of moral responsibility might start to become less certain and more subtle. Notice also, if possible, that the most maniacally funny parts of the story tell us some very chilling things about ourselves. Ah yes, Lord Buckley: a most extraordinary man—extracting roaring laughter from people by telling them a bit about the nature of evil and by making them see a glimpse of the terrible evil within themselves. There is even a chance that by listening carefully to this satanic monologue you could gain a larger understanding of what The Nazz was talking about when He spoke of Love. Who knows?
...the problem of humanity, of progress to be beautiful, to be more gracious, more sweet, more divine; and, when you balance yourself, the international truth that the world is a family—love—will hit you. And love is swinging.
Listen to the Noble Sir Richard Buckley give the biography of The Hip Einie, telling if the heavy obstacle he had to fight through until he came to where he "laid back into the longest goof in the history of the far-out wig-stretch" and became King of All Spaceheads, and of how this resulted many years later in the building of The Big Heater, an event which has changed the world, and which could destroy mankind. But all The Hip Einie did was to live his life, and live it gently and righteously, fighting his problems as best he could. He was, after all, only human.
And that is what Lord Richard Buckley was telling us about most often—our humanity. He talked about what being human is, about how weird an animal we are, and we laugh at our own weirdness. He showed us how strange and wonderful it is to be a living human being, and he showed us how to make the most of it. He taught us how easy it is to love our neighbor, and how beautiful it is to forgive.
People, of course, can be nothing but people; we each just find different ways of fighting the same problems—and of loving the beauty of the same Earth. Lord Buckley shows this to us, and we laugh. Ah yes, Lord Buckley.
Richard Selinkoff
AMG REVIEW: A reissue of this classic recording, it includes "The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis De Sade."—Larry Lapka
"A most immaculately hip aristocrat," Lord Buckley was the epitome of comedy cool; a onetime vaudeville performer and a hulking ex-lumberjack, he was a comic philosopher, a bop monologuist whose vocalese fused the rhythms and patois of the street with the arch sophistication of the British upper-crust to create verbal symphonies unparalleled in their intricacy and dexterity. A comedian who didn't tell jokes and a word-jazz virtuoso riffing madly on the English language, Buckley combined the frenetic intensity of Beat poetry with the lessons and moral heft of Biblical tales and historical discourse; holding court over the "hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies" of the postwar era, he was a true visionary, the original rapper.
His Lordship was born Richard Myrle Buckley on April 5, 1906 in Tuolumne, California, a mining town located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. After spending his formative years as a lumberjack, in the mid-1920s Buckley set out to find work in the oilfields of Texas and Mexico; he never made it, instead teaming with a traveling guitarist to form a musical comedy act. By the 1930s he was in Chicago, emceeing in mob-owned speakeasies; there he became a protege of Al Capone, who set up the comedian with his own club, the Chez Buckley, where he performed backed by a cadre of jazz musicians. Constant vice-squad pressure soon forced Buckley out of town, however, and throughout the early 1940s he worked the vaudeville circuit, gaining a notorious reputation for ridiculing unhip audiences and smoking dope onstage.
After touring with the U.S.O. during World War II, Buckley relocated to New York City, where he acted in a Broadway production titled The Passing Show. After marrying Elizabeth Hanson, one of the show's dancers, the couple and their children moved to Los Angeles at the dawn of the 1950s; after attempts to break into films proved largely unsuccessful, Buckley began taking on the persona of "His Lordship," an aristocratic hipster madman clad in tuxedo, pith helmet and Salvador Dali-esque waxed moustache. He quickly emerged as an underground legend, partipicating in LSD experiments while throwing wild parties at his rented Hollywood Hills mansion (dubbed the Castle) where the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Curtis mingled with jazz musicians, junkies and poets. At a Topanga Canyon art gallery owned by his friend Bob DeWitt, he also founded the first jazz religion, "The Church of the Living Swing."
In 1951 Buckley made his first recordings for the Vaya label, Euphoria and Euphoria, Volume II. The first album contained his most legendary routine, "The Nazz," a "hipsemantic" retelling of the life of Christ ("the sweetest, gonest, wailinest cat that ever stomped on this sweet, swingin' sphere"); the latter featured a number of riffs on Aesop's Fables as well as "Jonah and the Whale," complete with a pothead Jonah. Despite a series of well-received appearances on The Tonight Show, The Milton Berle Show and You Bet Your Life, Buckley did not re-enter the studio until 1955, when he cut Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes, which spotlighted his adaptations of scenes from the Shakespearean dramas Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth.
After issuing a trio of singles in 1956—"Flight of the Saucer, Parts 1 and 2" (an excursion into outer space rapped over the 1946 Lyle Griffin track "Flight of the Vout Bug"), "The Gettysburg Address" and "James Dean's Message to Teenagers"—as well as recording the LP A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat (which went unreleased until 1970), Buckley moved to Las Vegas, where he worked the nightclub and casino circuit. In 1959 he returned to play Hollywood; the majority of a February 12 appearance at the Ivar Theatre was soon issued as the album Way Out Humor, while the remainder appeared in 1966 as Blowing His Mind (and Yours, Too). Ever the nomad, Buckley and his family moved to San Francisco in 1960, where he took up residency at clubs like the Hungry i and the Purple Onion; a performance at Oakland's Gold Nugget formed the basis of the 1970 release The Bad Rapping of the Marquis de Sade.
In the summer of 1960, Buckley set out alone in a red VW microbus to tour the country; in August he arrived in Chicago, where he fell ill. Still, he forged on to New York for a series of October performances at the Jazz Gallery; during one of his shows, the city's vice squad confiscated his cabaret card—a document necessary to play area clubs—on the grounds that he lied about having a prior arrest record. On November 12, he called the novelist Harold Humes, complaining of great anxiety triggered by the cabaret bureau's daily refusals to reissue his card; he also said he was hungry and broke. Within hours of hanging up the phone, Lord Buckley was dead of a stroke brought on by "extreme hypertension;" he was 54 years old. A few weeks later, civic pressure forced a repeal of the cabaret card law.
While never a mainstream figure, Buckley's stature grew to mythic proportions in the months and years following his death. Lenny Bruce was an avowed fan, borrowing much of his attitude and rhythms from Buckley's lead, and everyone from Jonathan Winters to Robin Williams acknowledged His Lordship's influence. Bob Dylan was also enamored of his work, and at the outset of his career frequently covered Buckley's rendition of the poet Joseph Newman's "Black Cross." Jimmy Buffett performed the Buckley original "God's Own Drunk," and George Harrison's hit "Crackerbox Palace" drew inspiration from the comedian's life and its title from the name given his tiny Hollywood home. Still the subject of a fanatical cult following and a true underground hero, even decades after exiting "this sweet, swingin' sphere" the self-styled Messiah of Hip lives on.
—Jason Ankeny
I never met him. The tapes were brought to us—they were very rare tapes. Some of them were recorded in his living room, I think, 'cause you can hear an old four-engine airplane flying over the living room while he's doing one of his routines. And I heard some of his albums before, you know, in the '50s—he'd been around for quite some time. And when these tapes were made available to us—'cause he was dead at the time—those were released on Bizarre. I said, "Yeah, let's put 'em out," 'cause they're pretty funny.
Could you tell me a little bit about Lord Buckley? If you have anything else coming out on him or . . .
No, I don't. Those are masters that were made available for just one album.
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