| Album notes by Gail Zappa
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| Frank Zappa was, from the ground up and the stars down, a Composer. During his time here he carried on alarmingly with bits and pieces of musics called “objects”. Some were numbered. Some were written out with attendant scores and parts. Some were played out by Frank or members of his various rockin’ teen-age combos. Most are likely recognizable to the hardcore listeners. But not all objects are groups of notes - or even groups. This idea of “objects” extends all the way into every nook and cranberry of his life and what he “did for a living” - which includes but does not of necessity refer to “jobs” in any conventional (or, non-conscious) sense. They appear as if at random throughout the length and breadth of what FZ unilaterally denoted (no pun intended) the Project/Object ▶. In his autobiography, “The Real Frank Zappa Book”, he described this as
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the overall concept of my work in various mediums. Each project (in whatever realm), or interview connected to it, is part of a larger object, for which there is no “technical name”.
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| This project/object, MOFO, is homeomorphic to the man and to the prime, sine qua non of his Arcana, “Freak Out!”
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| This is the first in the series of exploratory delvings into the nuts and bolts from the blue that, contracted, became the stuff of so many lives on the other side of their ears. And it is at the altar of ironic vernacular splendor that we adore MOFO, which said title we found in the “Secrets of the Universe” - probably not in your library if you ever bothered to go there - under the headings “Evolution of the name, significance of term, The Muthers, true meaning thereof, see also convocation of”. As for certain YOUTH (younglings of uniquely trenchant humor) I am sure they have an accurate understanding of MOFO in a current social context - and can easily grasp the horrors of having a RECORD COMPANY tell you to change your name at a time when “the mothers” were the same words that defined the same term used today. In 1965 this expression in the singular, designated respect-earned by being recognized as a very badass on your axe (instrument, primarily, Guitar). It is just so fancy that 40 years later the joke is still on and it still works. We feel it is our duty…
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| MOFO is dedicated to Ed Murdy and to my brothers (twins), Herbert Riley and Arthur Freitas Sloatman.
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| On September 3rd, 1966 I was in Orlando, Florida, visiting my parents. My brothers were 15. I was 21. It was the day of my sister’s wedding. I had saved up what little money I could to buy a roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles and had arrived a few days earlier - with “Freak Out!” in my suitcase. It was the first time I was separated for more than a few hours from Frank. At the airport my parents were shocked to see me in my short skirts and no apparent undergarments other than bikini panties. I was shocked that it was the only thing they could “see”.
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| My brothers wanted to show off their big sister from California to all their friends - right up to the moment they saw the cover of “Freak Out!”. They couldn’t wait to hear it! And once they did it totally consumed them. That was ALL they wanted - just to listen to it over and over again. Within 24 hours they knew every lyric and air-guitared every lick. Now I was shocked to witness firsthand what Frank knew about the audience for this music - if they could just get a chance to hear it. And it was so exciting to observe and although I could see their instantaneous visceral response, clearly, the gravity of the experience had not yet sunk in - even as I knew I was standing at the last outpost of childhood’s end.
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| So we’re back to September 3rd and the wedding party of bride and bridesmaids has just left for the big event, my sister looking glorious in a white and blue full length satin gown with an empire waist. And my father, a military officer, in his full dress whites and my mother and my sisters and my brothers all done up in outfits that must have been planned for weeks - and I just have a slip of a little “baby-doll” dress-short, sweet and shaped like the sort of dresses little boys wore in the 20’s. It is white.
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| We are on the lawn, heading to the station wagon (imagine you are driving by just at that moment, how pastorally idyllic it would seem). I am the last one out the door. My mother and my brothers are now in the car when my father suddenly wheels around and sternly informs me I cannot wear “that” dress, that I have to go inside and find something of my mother’s to wear. My mother said: “Yes, you can’t wear white to a wedding!” I pointed out that my father was wearing white and that no one could possibly mistake me for the bride. But he wouldn’t have it. Further angry words were briefly exchanged during which my brothers opened the car doors and leapt out shouting that if I couldn’t go they wouldn’t go. There was this look my father gave them that sent them back to their seats and the chunka-chookah of the door slams. I stood there as he got in the car and drove away.
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| I went inside and scrounged around for change to make up what I needed to get a cab to the airport. I left the record behind. Frank told me to bring it back because we couldn’t really afford copies. We couldn’t afford long distance calls either. I left “Freak Out!” for my brothers. I went home to Frank. He is still my favorite address.
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| In this while that I have been here I have had the great fortune to read so many letters from so many people who tell me how Frank Zappa (his Music) changed their lives. And for many it began with hearing a record when they were teenagers. So when it came to be time to put this together I was wishing desperately for another 15 year old person to write liner notes. I had just told Joe that there was probably someone in all those letters but what we really want is someone who loves “Freak Out!”. Exactly one day later Diva tells me that her friend Sarah Carter would like to bring her brother over to say hello because he is interested in music. Fine. He plays drums. Great. Maybe Joe will be here when they come over. Enter Chris Riess. Not only does he play drums, he gets a little lesson from Joe. And he has discovered “Freak Out!” all on his own. Recently.
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| And we spent the rest of the day in wild abandon listening to what would soon become MOFO. Not exactly that night but sometime later, I called David Fricke. He’s got the chops and the experience and knows well the view from the deck of When in the Time-Space continuum of Popular Music, and, as in this case, not-so-popular Music. But mostly, he was exactly the right age for “Freak Out!” when first it was made manifest and destiny went from objective in the arms of Paul Anka to subjective in the mind of Frank Zappa.
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| P.S. I want to include a Special Thanks to David Anderle for producing the photos that no one has ever really seen - from the studio and from the album cover “art” itself. And I did want to comment on a few other things, such as how prepared FZ (and the band) was for the “Freak Out!” Sessions and how much music was just a downbeat away from being recorded - how far in advance the music was written for what would become the next several albums. And I wanted to say a few things about FZ’s high-school and life-long appreciation for certain aspects of Southern California culture. But you can hear it for yourself. In his own words. In his music. And you can even see it in this sketch from his very own teen-age scrapbook:
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| Album notes by Chris Riess - February 15, 2006
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| I first stumbled across “Freak Out!” while reading Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time about 3 years ago. I remembered hearing of this Frank Zappa character just by reading music books and being an utter music fanatic, but I never actually heard his music. Little did I know that “Freak Out!” would be the dawning of an obsession for Zappa’s music that I have developed over the years.
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| I brought the record home, popped it on the cd player and was immediately blown away by the opening riff of “Hungry freaks, daddy”. It was so similar to the Stones’ riff on ♫ “Satisfaction” with a different twist that was so utterly fascinating. The vocals had this raw sound that was so refreshing. Then the kazoo comes in and I’m like “what the fuck?” I had never heard a kazoo in rock & roll before… Who the hell is this guy? He used so many different instruments and sounds on that album that seem to be unheard of at the time.
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| Now that “Hungry freaks” had caught my attention, I was so excited to hear what else this apparent genius could come up with. Then I hear “Ain’t got no heart”:
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“I would throw away
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The groovy life I lead
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‘Cause, baby, what you got
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It sure ain’t what I need”
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| For some reason that lyric just stuck in my brain and I cannot understand why… even still to this day.
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| The next song that truly caught my attention was “Motherly love”. It just is a burst of sound as soon as the track comes on. The melodies and blending of sound on that track just makes you want to play it over and over again. The kazoo on that track was so intriguing that it made you think: “God this guy can make a kazoo sound so musical… what the hell else can he do?”
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| Although “You didn’t try to call me” seems like a normal 60’s love song, it was simply zappafied. The song has just such catchy melodies and lyrics you cannot just listen to it once to get all the juice out of it.
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| Now, “Any way the wind blows” is my favorite song on “Freak Out!”. It has one of my favorite guitar riffs between verses, guitar solos and choruses of all time. I simply love the lyrics / guitar and everything on that track. In my opinion, the small vocal solo kicks ♫ The great gig in the sky’s ass.
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| “Trouble every day” is my second favorite track. The reason for that is because I love the intro. The sort of bluesy, raw sound that is produced is just unbelievable. His lyrics spoke of the times and to the era of the time. Making references to riots just like Dylan does except with a tint of Zappa’s humor.
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| OK, now I must say that I find “It can’t happen here” a goddamn hilarious masterpiece because a song like that was not heard of in the 50’s, 60’s and even to this day I have not heard one song like it. It is the most original thing ever. Starting with a weird vocal then turning into this jazz piano solo - I find it just completely brilliant!
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| The same goes for “The return of the son of Monster Magnet”. The opening Suzy Creamcheese lines I find hilarious but the different sounds on that track are crazy. There is like a vocal solo over alien invasion sounds with like a drum track behind it. Very weird, yet intriguing and captivating.
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| The main thing that makes “Freak Out!” amazing to me is that none of the songs sound the same. I mean the Beatles were great but the “I love you” songs just got repetitive after a while and it seemed their sound was the same on most songs. Zappa’s sound is constantly changing on the record. “Hungry freaks” sounds nothing like “Any way the wind blows” and “It can’t happen here” sounds nothing like “Help, I’m a rock”. The same goes for Zappa’s career. “Freak Out!” sounds nothing like “Joe’s Garage” or “Hot Rats”. “Apostrophe (’)” sounds nothing like “Jazz from Hell”. And he continued to evolve even to his last days when he was composing with the Ensemble Modern. His career starts with “Freak Out!” and ends with beautiful orchestra music.
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| “Freak Out!” is a musical masterpiece that will always hold a special place with me because not only is the music fantastic, but it introduced me to a musical god.
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| Album notes by David Fricke
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| On October 28, 1978, during a long, wide-ranging interview about his music and history in his spacious New York hotel suite, I asked Frank Zappa about his audience - the people on the other side of record-shop counters in 1966, ‘67 and ‘68, buying the first albums he made with the Mothers of Invention. Who were they? How much did he know about them?
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| Zappa responded with quick, characteristic certainty. “I knew pretty accurately based on what the mail was” he said “Ninety percent of it was male, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, from middle-class, Jewish suburban homes. We were saying something that those particular kids wanted to hear”.
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| And those “kids” were not hippies, Zappa made that clear. “Hippies liked the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. They thought that was real music. We were just comedy shit. We were too hard to listen to. We required too much concentration”.
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| I was not about to argue with his demographics. I never sent the Mothers any cards or letters, and I did not get to see Zappa in concert until the early Seventies, by which time all of the founding-lineup Mothers were long gone. Yet except for the “Jewish” part (insert “Lutheran” instead), Zappa had just described me, as I was at the moment I first heard the record you hold in your hands: the Mothers’ 1966 four-sided, first-of-its-kind earthquake, “Freak Out!”. I was sixteen, middle class and desperate to be neither, convinced I was living in a solitary confinement without bars. I also had concentration - and curiosity - to spare.
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| So did Matt Groening. Today, he is a celebrated writer, artist and storyteller, not to mention the creator of America’s favorite nuclear family, The Simpsons. But in 1966, he was a twelve-year-old boy-scout in Portland, Oregon who pooled a precious six bucks with a friend to buy “Freak Out!” - primarily, Groening says now, because of the album’s title and the cover photo’s “glow of menace”. (Note how much the business of selling music has changed in forty years: Groening bought his copy of “Freak Out!” in the record department of a grocery store).
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| “I certainly felt like a freak” Groening recalls. “In the liner notes, Frank talks about being eleven years old and having a mustache. I thought: ‘Yes, that’s me!’. Suddenly, I had to scrape my face every day. I had strange urges. I felt gangly, and I sweated a lot. From that first song, ‘Hungry freaks, daddy’, I was blown away and completely on board”. Most important, he adds: “I felt like I was not alone. It was amazing later when I saw Frank in concert for the first time, in 1970 in the gymnasium at Lewis and Clark College: ‘Oh my God, Frank Zappa can fill a gym!’ All of the other people there were just like me”.
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| In our 1978 conversation, Zappa pointedly described his audience as “not limited, merely specialized” - a young, separate America, many of its citizens suffocating in high-school gym class, without representation anywhere else in the country’s politics or culture, including popular music. “It’s not my job to organize them” Zappa had said in an earlier interview with Newsweek in 1968 “The best I can do is ask a few questions”.
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| But one of them was central to the challenge and ecstasy of “Freak Out!” and, over the next three decades, the whole of Zappa’s life as a musician: How far are you willing to go, through how many locked doors and brick walls, and how hard are you willing to work to be truly free? In an age of records made mostly to blow your mind, Zappa’s basic message in the unprecedented extremes of “Freak Out!” was: Use it, don’t lose it.
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| Indeed, “Freak Out!” may be the only rock album of its vintage, audacity and historical authority to be as demanding and argumentative in this century as it was when it was originally released a little over halfway through the last one, in June 1966, by Verve Records, a mostly jazz and folk-rock subsidiary of the generally clueless MGM Records. “Freak Out!” was unleashed in the same year of the Beatles’ “Revolver”, Bob Dylan’s “Blonde On Blonde” and the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” all justly admired and widely imitated. But the very things that immediately magnetized ripe, ready minds like Groening’s and mine - and vexed, even angered, critics of the day - remain stunning and confounding, often at the same time: the stiletto-treble twang, kazoo raspberries and gargling chorales in “Hungry freaks, daddy”, the jolting rhythm changes and majestic big-band seizures in “I ain’t got no heart” and “How could I be such a fool”, the punch-line confession in the sing-along confrontation of “You’re probably wondering why I’m here” (“And so am I, so am I…”).
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| In 1966, Zappa and the Mothers - vocalist Ray Collins, bass guitarist Roy Estrada, drummer Jimmy Carl Black and guitarist Elliot Ingber - were a band defiantly outside their time and the emerging psychedelic orthodoxy. The concise rock & roll on Sides One and Two of “Freak Out!” was stubbornly rooted in what was then already considered ancient action: surf-and-blues guitar attack and the street-corner vocal heaven of late Fifties and early Sixties black rhythm & blues. Zappa’s lyric grenades about khaki pants ▶ and malt-shop foreplay were actually loving satire of the grease he and the other Mothers knew intimately as fans and veterans of the bar band grind in the desert suburbs of Los Angeles.
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| Zappa and Collins had co-written “Memories of El Monte” ▲, a 1963 single by a late-day version of the Penguins, and Zappa made a point in his “Freak Out!” liner notes of highlighting Collins’ 1957 falsetto contribution to ♫ “I remember Linda” by Little Julian Herrera and the Tigers.
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| Zappa would talk ruefully, in 1978, of how hard it was to talk to younger players about the magnificent records of his youth: “They may have heard rumors about what rhythm & blues was in the Fifties, but all they know about it from personal experience is a Sha Na Na record. How do you tell them about ♫ ‘Can I come over tonight?’ by the Velours?”
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| The other half of “Freak Out!” was just as radical in its modernism: a side-and-a-half suite of directed improvisation combining Zappa’s parallel love of contemporary classical music, particularly the percussion-orchestra explorations and electro-acoustic epiphanies of his boyhood hero Edgard Varèse, with the fertility-rite electricity of the Mothers’ L.A. shows. It may be hard to believe from this distance, but the ‘65 and ‘66 Mothers of Invention were a dance band, albeit one that came with its own go-go troupe - a coterie of literal freaks that had evolved around Vito Paulekas, a sculptor and veteran bohemian, and Carl Franzoni.
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| At Mothers gigs, the boys and girls and the Cherry Sisters danced not just to but for the band - if not on stage, then right in front.
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| “The way we danced” Franzoni says “we were illustrating what Frank had in mind with the notes. We were a way of communicating what he was telling you with his guitar”.
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| “There is a phrase Vito used to use - ‘planned anarchy’” says Franzoni, who was a vocal guest star with Vito on “Freak Out!”. “You plan a situation. Then the ‘freak out’ comes when one guy does something, you do something else and another guy over there picks up on that”. That, in brief, is the meltdown theater that starts with the viral groove of “Help, I’m a rock” (a jamming feature of Mothers shows), swerves into the a capella croon-and-cackle of “It can’t happen here”, then climaxes with the prolonged jungle boogie and nuclear squall of “The return of the son of Monster Magnet”.
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| Except Zappa had a score of explicit mischief written on brown wrapping paper, and he conducted the assembled Mothers and freaks with a baton.
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| “Freak Out!” is an album of multiple firsts: Zappa’s first album and his first recording for a major record label, the first two-record set of new, original songs by a rock band and the first double-LP debut in rock. It also has the most detailed credits, liner notes and prose gags of any rock album of its day, all bearing his voice and mark. Matt Groening recalls poring over the eight-column list of inspirations and influences in the gatefold spread, “trying to figure out who every single person was” - no minor homework assignment in that the roll call included not only Igor Stravinsky, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Muddy Waters but the pre-celebrity Tiny Tim, Richard Berry, the composer of ♫ “Louie Louie”, and Zappa’s high-school vice principal Ernest Tosi. “But when I could” Groening says “I checked those people out. That’s how I got into Varèse and Howlin’ Wolf”.
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| Now as MOFO: “The Making of Freak Out!”, the album is even bigger and more enlightening: blown up to four times its original size, into a trip through conception and recording, from start to literal finish (the last moments of the long night of “Monster Magnet”). There are alternate takes and overdub fun. There are subsequent remixes (Zappa apparently never completed “Freak Out!” to his satisfaction), period interviews and even a newly discovered outtake, the blunt, ribald “Groupie bang bang”, which makes the come-hither growl of “Motherly love” seem like ♫ “My funny Valentine”.
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| There is also much here that proves, for some of us, that the “Freak Out!” Mothers were one of the best bands Zappa ever played with and wrote for: the lamplight glow of the front-and-center vocal overdubs on Disc Two, the extended dogfight of the guitars in “Trouble every day”, a song that never seemed long enough even at its original five-plus minutes, the raw language and crunch of the concert tracks from the heart of Haight-Ashbury Nation, the night the Mothers opened for Lenny Bruce at the Fillmore Auditorium.
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| “Freak Out!” is also, undeniably, Zappa’s triumph - the album he had been preparing to make since he was a teenager, gasping for air in the Eisenhower Years but absolutely sure of his destiny. And when it was his time, he was ready.
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| The legendary studio bassist and guitarist Carol Kaye was one of the dozen-plus first-call session musicians that played on parts of “Freak Out!”, and she remembers being impressed both by Zappa’s manner as he led the musicians and the charts he handed out at the date. “Frank had training in his writing - you could see that” says Kaye, who contributed electric twelve-string-guitar fills on four tracks, including “I’m not satisfied” and “You didn’t try to call me”. “And the stuff was good” Kaye insists. “Frank knew what he wanted, and we loved that. You had respect for him, because you knew this kid had something”.
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| Frank Zappa - a vision of weird in that mustache, soul patch and raccoon coat but who already seemed older and wiser than my own parents - was only twenty-five years old.
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| In September 1963, Zappa received a letter from Milt Rogers, an A&R man at Dot Records. Rogers thanked Zappa for sending in a tape of songs for consideration, then dropped the bomb: “While the material does have merit, we do not feel strongly enough about its commercial potential ▶ to give you any assurance of a recording. It is, therefore, being returned to you”.
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| That was just one piece of the small mountain of buzz-off correspondence from labels, publishers and agents that Zappa collected in the years prior to “Freak Out!”. After escaping high school and doing short time at Chaffey Junior College in Alta Loma, California, Zappa embarked on his life’s work: writing orchestral pieces, B-movie scores and film scripts, producing singles for small L.A.-area labels and making demos of his own, singular songs, often in his infamous Studio Z in Cucamonga. And he refused to take “No” for an answer.
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| I asked him about that rejection letter, which was included in a fantastic Seventies promotional booklet covering Zappa’s first ten years as a Mother. Did he truly believe that record companies were ready for the hot pop on that demo? (Among the tunes on it: Freak Out!’s “Any way the wind blows” and “Take your clothes off when you dance”, eventually recorded for 1967’s “We’re Only in It for the Money”). “I don’t care whether record companies are ready” he replied sharply “I knew there were people who wanted to hear it. And they’d love it if they heard it”. Tom Wilson was one of those people, and he was the first one at a big record company to do something about it. “He was different, yeah” Zappa admitted “He ran interference for me”.
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| Wilson saw the Mothers of Invention for the first time in late November 1965, during one of the band’s many appearances at the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Boulevard. According to one account, he walked in near the end of a set, catching part of “Trouble every day”, nifty serendipity if true. The song was a bluesy rave-up about race riots and white guilt, inspired by the flames and gunfire in the Watts section of L.A. in August 1965. Wilson was black.
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| He was also among the best producers in rock & roll. Raised in Waco, Texas, Wilson attended the renowned black college, Fisk University, then went to Harvard, where he was active in jazz and broadcasting. He founded Transition Records in the Fifties, recording Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, and was a staff producer at Columbia Records, where he worked with Bob Dylan (producing ♫ “Like a rolling stone”) and was responsible for adding electric backing to Simon & Garfunkel’s ♫ “The sound of silence”, giving the duo a Number One hit. Wilson had moved to the A&R department at MGM by the time he saw the Mothers at the Whisky. And he didn’t just sign the band after that evening. He made an extraordinary commitment: a recording budget of $20,000 (big dough for the time, especially for a new act) and the promise of a double album.
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| Phyllis Smith was Wilson’s assistant at MGM, and she became close to Zappa as well (She is listed as “Fyllis” in “Freak Out!”’s inside spread, and later starred as Don Preston’s would-be love interest in Zappa’s film “Uncle Meat”). “Tom was very laid back but also very smart” Smith says “He knew what he wanted but was cool about it. I imagine Tom liked the craziness of Frank and the Mothers. He had a quirky eye for things. But Tom could also see that Frank had real talent. Frank was serious, and he had a wacky side. Tom was attracted to that, because of his own intelligence and humor”.
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| “Tom also wasn’t shy about giving his opinion about things within the company” Smith adds. “They let him do all that for Frank” - the studio advance, the two-record set - “because the executives respected his intelligence - and because most executives don’t care about that stuff”.
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| “Freak Out!” was made on four-track at TTG Studios, located on Highland Avenue, just off Sunset. Then one of the busiest independent facilities in Los Angeles, it was opened in 1965 by owner-engineer Ami Hadani, a veteran of the Israeli army who received “special appreciation” from Zappa in the “Freak Out!” credits. But the reason we have so much more “Freak Out!” here is because Zappa brought his own monaural reel-to-reel machine to each session, taping everything that went down, including a lot of antics (like the instructional tracks on Disc Three) that were not caught on multi-track. Zappa’s documentary impulse was up and running.
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| Wilson was listed as producer on “Freak Out!”, but he essentially let Zappa run the sessions. Wilson’s sonorous voice can be heard in this set, Zappa’s commanding presence is heard more, cueing the Mothers, coaching the freaks. “Frank was in charge” Carol Kaye says, without hesitation.
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| “Funny - I don’t remember Tom hardly at all at the session, although I worked with him on other records. And that was wise - for the guy behind the glass to let the artist do his thing”.
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| Kaye also remembers the Mothers as a band. “Sometimes on sessions, the producer would have friends or his particular favorites sitting in. Usually they couldn’t play very well, and you had to carry them. These guys played well. We didn’t have to give them a kick or anything” she adds, laughing.
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| Listen to the 1965 demos of “Motherly love”, “Any way the wind blows” and “I ain’t got no heart” recorded by an earlier lineup with imminent Canned Heat guitarist Henry Vestine, on the recent archival compilation, “Joe’s Corsage”. The officially-released arrangements are virtually in place. Then go to the Fillmore version of “You didn’t try to call me” with Collins’ and Zappa’s freestyle raps over the brute vamp of Ingber, Black and Estrada (“All I want to do is get in your pants!” Collins declares, throwing innuendo out the window). And listen to the chatter in this set as Zappa, Collins and Estrada (a fine, underrated singer) rewrite and refine harmony arrangements on the spot. Note, in particular, the alternate bridge in “Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder”, sung doo-wop style instead of spoken.
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| The Mothers were at once reckless and tight, spontaneous on stage yet - under Zappa’s direction - attentive to performing detail. Estrada, Black and Collins had already been a band, The Soul Giants (with soon-departed sax man, Davy Coronado), when Collins brought Zappa into the group. Zappa quickly took over, but with their blessing. His exact words were: “If you will play my music, I will make you rich and famous”. Zappa definitely made them rich in fame.
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| “It’s absolutely true - I’m the total dictator of the band, the same way the conductor is the total dictator of an orchestra” Zappa told me when asked about his reputation as a bandleader, the Mothers above all others. But, he contended: “I just want to get the job done. There’s no personality trip involved”.
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| “I’m working for the audience” he said “And the band works for me”.
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| Zappa’s ‘78 recollection of making “Freak Out!” was “one session for the rhythm tracks, another session for the vocals” and another for the multi-part freak out.
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| Original musicians’ union logs (which can be unreliable, depending on who filed them) list five sessions over four days: March 9-12, 1966, with two on the 9th and the “Help / Happen / Magnet” extravaganza done during a 2-5 AM shift on the 12th (that seems right: a March letter from the Laurentide Finance Company, demanding to know where the hell all the rented drums were, is quoted in the gatefold ▲).
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| Carl Franzoni recalls walking into TTG that night and seeing Wilson and the engineering team in the control booth “looking perturbed and questioning, like: ‘What the hell is going to happen here?’”
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| This is what happened: a composed and vigorously conducted version of the heavy weather - cops, nightsticks and meat wagons vs. bands, dancers and teen-age crazies - just outside the studio doors on Sunset Strip every night. The expanded cast of Mothers and maniacs in the studio that night included not just Vito, Franzoni and the very tall and ultra-hip Kim Fowley, but many of the musicians and artists that shared the Mothers’ stages and moved in their orbit. Some of them appear in the liner notes and photos: P.F. Sloan, Paul Butterfield, jazz pianist Les McCann and singers Cory Wells and Danny Hutton, later of Three Dog Night. Also there: Mac Rebennack, who was not yet Dr. John and quit the date early because he couldn’t get his head around the music, Michael Clarke of the Byrds and a young Terry Gilliam, future Monty Python animator and director of “Brazil” and “Twelve Monkeys”.
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| “Those were the people on the street that the cops were wrapping up in buses” ▶ Zappa explained later. And “Freak Out!” was his warning that it could soon happen where you lived, if it wasn’t already.
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| To freak out was not only to be alive and wild. There was the other meaning, of dark shit and bad trips, of establishment power plays disguised as high morality.
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| One night during the Watts riot, Franzoni found himself on the wrong end of police shotguns and National Guard bayonets when the car he was in, with Johnny Echols and Bryan MacLean from the band Love, was stopped and searched. And the Mothers finally split for New York following the late ‘66 sessions for “Absolutely Free”, after the LAPD all but shut down the Strip with indiscriminate, illegal roundups of kids hanging out in front of the clubs.
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| “That album is as real today as it was forty years ago” Franzoni claims. “There is no question in my mind. Frank always had the facts of whatever was going on around him, and he knew how to write about it. And we’re still living in the same lies. There is no solid truth anywhere - except in this music”.
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| It may be a truth many people are still not ready to hear. Soaked in black echo, jumping from slow-dance paranoia to runaway fear, “Who are the brain police?” is masterful cross-examination: a series of questions about identity and obedience, put to you with growling bass, in nightmare voices. “Frank talked about that song in interviews at the time” says Matt Groening “about how it was a very important work for him and that people hadn’t really gotten it. Because Frank doesn’t answer the question: who are the brain police?”
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| Groening finally heard the answer in 1971, when he saw Zappa live with the Flo & Eddie edition of the Mothers. “They did ‘Who are the brain police?’. And this time, the last line was: ‘You are the brain police’”.
|
| My favorite addition to one of my favorite albums and pivotal rock & roll experiences is “Low-budget rock & roll band”, the wailing conclusion to the last, mad night of the sessions. There are plenty of examples here of Zappa as a great songwriter, monster guitarist, killing wit and iron leader. But that track has the humanity and honest labor of the Zappa inside them all.
|
| There is applause. Someone yells: “Beautiful, beautiful”. Zappa jokes about “greasing” (handing out) copies of the album when it is released, then asks the multitude to “leave as swiftly as possible” and not take any of the rented percussion with them, since he will have to pay for it. “We’re a low-budget rock & roll band. We haven’t worked in six fucking weeks”.
|
| That would change. But Frank Zappa had always been a working musician, and he would be one long after this album became legend, to the very end of his life. “I just do mine for me” he told me that day in 1978 “and the other people who like it”.
|
| I am one of them. Because of “Freak Out!”.
|
| [Notes by FZ] It was written for Carl Orestes Franzoni. He is freaky down to his toe nails. Some day he will live next door to you and your lawn will die.
|
| Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.
|
| Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. This song has no message. Rise for the flag salute.
|
|
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your schools that do not teach
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The minds that won’t be reached
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The emptiness that’s you inside
|
| When once you find that the way you lied
|
| And all the corny tricks you tried
|
| Will not forestall the rising tide
|
| Of hungry freaks, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Hungry freaks, daddy
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your supermarket dream
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The liquor store supreme
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The product of your savage pride
|
| The useful minds that it denied
|
| The day you shrugged and stepped aside
|
| You saw their clothes and then you cried:
|
| “Those hungry freaks!”, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is a summary of my feelings in social-sexual relationships.
|
|
|
| Ain’t got no heart
|
| I ain’t got no heart to give away
|
| I sit and laugh at fools in love
|
| There ain’t no such thing as love
|
| No angels singing up above today
|
|
|
| Girl, I don’t believe
|
| Girl, I don’t believe in what you say
|
| You say your heart is only mine
|
| I say to you: “You must be blind
|
| What makes you think that you’re so fine
|
|
|
| That I would throw away
|
| The groovy life I lead?
|
| ‘Cause, baby, what you got, yeah
|
| It sure ain’t what I need
|
|
|
| Girl, you’d better go
|
| Girl, you’d better go away
|
| I think that life with you would be
|
| Just not quite the thing for me
|
| Why is it so hard to see my way?
|
|
|
| Why should I be stuck with you?
|
| It’s just not what I want to do
|
| Why should an embrace or two
|
| Make me such a part of you?”
|
| I ain’t got no heart to give away
|
| [Notes by FZ] At five o’clock in the morning someone kept singing this in my mind and made me write it down. I will admit to being frightened when I finally played it out loud and sang the words.
|
|
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
|
|
| What will you do if we let you go home
|
| And the plastic’s all melted and so is the chrome?
|
| Who are the brain police?
|
|
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
|
|
| What will you do when the label comes off
|
| And the plastic’s all melted and the chrome is too soft?
|
|
|
| WAAAAHHHH!
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| I think I’m going to die
|
| I think I’m going to die
|
| I think I’m going to die
|
| I think I’m going to die
|
| I’m gonna die
|
| I think I’m going to die
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| I’m going to die
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| I think I’m gonna die
|
| Going to die
|
|
|
| Who are the brain police?
|
|
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
|
|
|
| What will you do if the people you knew
|
| Were the plastic that melted and the chromium too?
|
| Who are the brain police?
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is very greasy. You should not listen to it. You should wear it on your hair.
|
|
|
| A year ago today was when you went away
|
| But now you come back knockin’ on my door
|
| And you say you’re back to stay
|
| But I say…
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now, I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| You cheated me, baby, and told some dirty lies about me
|
| Fooled around with all those other guys
|
| That’s why I had to set you free
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| A year ago today you went away
|
| And now you come back cryin’, cryin’: “Darling, please let me in”
|
| But I don’t need you, no, I don’t love you anymore
|
| So go lean on, go cry on somebody else’s door
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now, I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| (Oh, my darling!)
|
|
|
| Go ahead and cry
|
| Go ahead and let the tears fall out of your eye
|
| (Darling)
|
| Let ‘em fall on your dress
|
| Who cares if it makes a mess?
|
| I gave you my high-school ring
|
| At the root beer stand
|
| We had a teen-age love, baby
|
| I thought it was charp, it was really so grand, but…
|
|
|
| You cheated me, baby, and told some dirty lies about me
|
| Fooled around with all those other guys
|
| That’s why I had to get my khakis pressed
|
| I sure don’t need you now, I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| Ba-ay-by
|
| Baby
|
| I-I-I-I
|
| I love you so much, darling
|
| I… I, oh, I love you
|
| Why don’t you dig me?
|
| Ba-ay-by
|
| I dig you but you don’t dig me
|
| Oh, I need you
|
| I don’t understand what it is
|
| Ba-ay-by
|
| I… I had my car re-upholstered
|
| I got my hair processed
|
| Oh, I love you
|
| I got a nice Pompadour job on it
|
| Oh, my baby
|
| I bought a new pair of shoes
|
| Oh, my love
|
| I got some new khakis and I met you
|
| And we went out to get a Coca-Cola
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is a body commercial for the band. It is sung during live performances to advise the female audience of potential delights to be derived from social contact with us folks. Trivial poop.
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| The Mothers got love that’ll drive ya mad, they’re ravin’ ‘bout the way we do
|
| No need to feel lonely, no need to feel sad if we ever get ahold on you
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Come on, get it now
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| Nature’s been good to this here band, don’t ever think we’re shy
|
| Send us up some little groupies and we’ll take their hands and rock ‘em till they sweat and cry
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Get it now
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| We can love ya till ya have a heart attack, you’d best believe that’s true
|
| We’ll bite your neck and scratch your back till ya don’t know what to do
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| You know I’ve got a little motherly love for you, baby
|
| Yeah
|
| You know I’ve got a little motherly love for you, honey
|
| Yeah
|
| You know it doesn’t bother me at all that you’re only eighteen years old
|
| ‘Cause I got a little motherly love for you, baby
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is based on a modified nanigo rhythm. We call it a Motown Waltz. It stays in 3/4 time throughout, but shifts in the accents occur from section to section. As an American teenager (as an American), this means nothing to you. (I always wondered if I could write a love song).
|
|
|
| When I won your love I was very glad
|
| Every happiness in the world belonged to me
|
| Then our love was lost and you went away
|
| Now I shed my tears in lonely misery
|
|
|
| I know now that you never ever really loved me
|
| It hurts me now to think you never ever really cared
|
| I sit and ask myself a thousand times to try and find
|
| What really happened to the love that we shared
|
|
|
| How could I be such a fool?
|
| How could I believe all those lies you told me?
|
| How could I be taken in by your sweet face?
|
|
|
| You spoiled our love
|
| You ruined my life
|
| I’m so tore down
|
| I’m a terrible disgrace
|
|
|
| But there will come a time and you’ll regret the way
|
| You treated me as if I was a fool and didn’t know
|
| The many times you lied about your love for me
|
| Someone else is gonna know that your love was just a show
|
|
|
| How could I be such a fool?
|
|
|
| Wowie Zowie, your love’s a treat
|
| Wowie Zowie, you can’t be beat
|
| Wowie Zowie, baby, you’re so neat
|
| I don’t even care if you shave your legs
|
|
|
| Wowie Zowie, baby, you’re so fine
|
| Wowie Zowie, baby, please be mine
|
| Wowie Zowie, ✄ up and down my spine
|
| I don’t even care if you brush your teeth
|
|
|
| Dream of you each mornin’
|
| I dream of you each night
|
| Just the other day I got so shook up
|
| I dreamed of you in the afternoon
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| I dream of you each mornin’
|
| I dream of you each night
|
| Just the other day I got so shook up
|
| I had a flash in the afternoon
|
|
|
| Wowie Zowie, baby, ✄ love me do
|
| Wowie Zowie, and I’ll love you too
|
| Wowie Zowie, baby, I’ll be true
|
| I don’t even care if your dad’s the heat
|
|
|
| Wowie Zowie
|
|
|
| Wowie
|
| Wowie Zowie
|
| Wowie
|
| [Repeat]
|
| [Notes by FZ] It was written to describe a situation in which Pamela Zarubica found herself last spring. (“Wowie Zowie” is what she says when she’s not grouchy… who would guess it could inspire a song? No one would guess. None of you are perceptive enough. Why are you reading this?) The formal structure of “You didn’t try to call me” is not revolutionary, but it is interesting. You don’t care.
|
|
|
| You didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| No matter who I take home, I keep on callin’ your name
|
| And you… I need you so bad, ‘cause you’re The One, babe
|
|
|
| Tell me, tell me, who’s lovin’ you now
|
| ‘Cause it worries my mind and I can’t sleep at all
|
| I stayed home on Friday just to wait for your call
|
|
|
| And you didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| No matter who I take home, I keep on callin’ your name
|
| And you… I need you so bad, ‘cause you’re The One, babe
|
|
|
| Tell me, tell me, who’s lovin’ you now
|
| ‘Cause it worries my mind and I can’t sleep at all
|
| I stayed home on Friday just to wait for your call
|
|
|
| I can’t say what’s right or what’s wrong
|
| But I love you
|
| All you gotta do is call me, babe
|
| ‘Cause I want you
|
|
|
| You make me feel so excited, girl!
|
| I’ve got so hung up on you from the moment that we met
|
| That no matter how I try, I can’t keep the tears
|
| From running down my face, I’m all alone at my place
|
|
|
| You didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| Baby!
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try?
|
| I say, please!
|
| Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| I stayed home all afternoon, man
|
| I was working on my car
|
| I fixed the upholstery
|
| I fixed the seat so it would tilt back
|
| We were going to go to the drive-in
|
| And you didn’t call me, man
|
| I waited, it was Friday night, I remember, man
|
| It was nine o’clock and I was sitting on home
|
| I was still watching television and you didn’t try to call me
|
| We’d been going steady for six weeks
|
| And I thought you were my teen-age thrill
|
| I thought you were my teen angel, man
|
| But you didn’t call me
|
| I dig you so much, man, why didn’t you call me?
|
| If you could have seen me in the afternoon
|
| I was hung up, I even washed the car
|
| I… I reprimered the right front fender, man
|
| We were gonna go, we were gonna go out
|
| And get some root beer afterwards, man
|
| Baby!
|
| And I was gonna show everybody my new carburetor
|
| Baby!
|
| And you didn’t try to call me
|
| Girl!
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is a song I wrote about three years ago when I was considering divorce. If I had never gotten divorced, this piece of trivial nonsense would never have been recorded. It is included in this collection because, in a nutshell, kids, it is… how shall I say it? … it is intellectually and emotionally ACCESSIBLE for you. Hah! Maybe it is even right down your alley!
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows, is-a fine with me
|
| Any way the wind blows, it don’t matter to me
|
| ‘Cause I’m thru with-a fussin’ and-a fightin’ with-a you
|
| I went out and found a woman who is gonna be true
|
| She makes me, oh, so happy, now I’m never ever blue
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| She is my heart and soul and she loves me tenderly
|
| Now ✄ my story can be told, just how good she is to me
|
| Yes, she treats me like she loves me and she never makes me cry
|
| I’m gonna stick with her till the day I die
|
| She’s not like you, baby, she would never ever lie
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| Now that I am free from the troubles of the past
|
| Took me much too long to see that our romance couldn’t last
|
| I’m gonna go away and leave you standing at the door
|
| I’ll tell you, pretty baby, I won’t be back no more
|
| ‘Cause you don’t even know what love is for
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is OK and safe and was designed that way on purpose.
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Got no place to go
|
| I’m tired of walking up and down the street all by myself
|
| No love left for me to give
|
| I tried and tried, but no one wants me the way I am
|
| Why should I pretend I like to roam from door to door?
|
| Maybe I’ll just kill myself, I just don’t care no more
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Who would care if I was gone?
|
| I never met no one who’d care if I was dead and gone
|
| Who needs me to care for them?
|
| Nobody needs me, why should I just hang around?
|
| Why should I just sit and watch while the others smile?
|
| I just wish that someone cared if I was happy for a while
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
| Bop bop-bop bop-bop bop-bow
|
| Bop bop-bop bop-bop bop-bop
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| And so am I, so am I
|
|
|
| Just as much as you wonder ‘bout me bein’ in this place
|
| YEAH!
|
| That’s just how much I marvel at the lameness on your face
|
|
|
| You rise each day the same old way
|
| And join your friends out on the street
|
| Spray your hair and think you’re neat
|
| I think your life is incomplete
|
| But maybe that’s not for me to say
|
| They only pay me here to play
|
|
|
| I wanna hear ♫ “Caravan” with a drum sola ▶
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| And so am I, so am I
|
|
|
| Just as much as you wonder ‘bout me starin’ back at you
|
| YEAH!
|
| That’s just how much I question the corny things you do
|
|
|
| You paint your face and then you chase
|
| To meet the gang where the action is
|
| Stomp all night and drink your fizz
|
| Roll your car and say: “Gee whiz!”
|
| You tore a big hole in your convertible top
|
| What will you tell your mom and pop?
|
|
|
| Mom, I tore a big hole in the convertible
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| And so am I, so am I
|
|
|
| Just as much as you wonder if I mean just what I say
|
| YEAH!
|
| That’s just how much I question the social games you play
|
|
|
| You told your mom you’re stoked on Tom
|
| And went for a cruise in Freddie’s car
|
| Tommy’s asking where you are
|
| You boogied all night in a cheesy bar
|
| Plastic boots and plastic hat
|
| And you think you know where it’s at
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| Not that it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to ya
|
| [Notes by FZ] It is how I feel about racial unrest in general and the Watts situation in particular. It was written during the Watts riot as it developed. I shopped it briefly all over Hollywood but no one would touch it… everybody worries so much about not getting any air play. My, my.
|
|
|
| Well, I’m about to get sick from watchin’ my TV
|
| Been checkin’ out the news until my eyeballs fail to see
|
| I mean to say that every day is just another rotten mess
|
| And when it’s gonna change, my friend, is anybody’s guess
|
|
|
| So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Wednesday I watched the riot, I seen the cops out on the street
|
| Watched ‘em throwin’ rocks and stuff, and chokin’ in the heat
|
| Listened to reports about the whisky passin’ ‘round
|
| Seen the smoke and fire and the market burnin’ down
|
| Watched while everybody on his street would take a turn
|
| To stomp and smash and bash and crash and slash and bust and burn
|
|
|
| And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Well, you can cool it, you can heat it
|
| ‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it
|
| Take your TV tube and eat it
|
| An’ all that phony stuff on sports
|
| An’ all the unconfirmed reports
|
| You know I watched that rotten box
|
| Until my head begin to hurt
|
| From checkin’ out the way
|
| The newsman say they get the dirt
|
| Before the guys on channel so-and-so
|
| And further they assert
|
| That any show they’ll interrupt
|
| To bring you news if it comes up
|
| They say that if the place blows up they will be the first to tell
|
| Because the boys they got downtown are workin’ hard and doin’ swell
|
| And if anybody gets the news before it hits the street
|
| They say that no one blabs it faster, their coverage can’t be beat
|
| And if another woman driver gets machine-gunned from her seat
|
| They’ll send some joker with a brownie and you’ll see it all complete
|
|
|
| So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Hey, you know something people?
|
| I’m not black, but there’s a whole lots a times I wish I could say I’m not white
|
|
|
| Well, I seen the fires burnin’
|
| And the local people turnin’
|
| On the merchants and the shops
|
| Who used to sell their brooms and mops
|
| And every other household item
|
| Watched a mob just turn and bite ‘em
|
| And they say it served ‘em right
|
| Because a few of them were white
|
| And it’s the same across the nation
|
| Black and white discrimination
|
| Yellin’: “You can’t understand me”
|
| An’ all that other jazz they hand me
|
| In the papers and TV
|
| And all that mass stupidity
|
| That seems to grow more every day
|
| Each time you hear some nitwit say
|
| He wants to go and do you in
|
| Because the color of your skin
|
| Just don’t appeal to him
|
| No matter if it’s black or white
|
| Because he’s out for blood tonight
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| You know we got to sit around at home and watch this thing begin
|
| But I bet there won’t be many live to see it really end
|
| ‘Cause the fire in the street ain’t like the fire in the heart
|
| And in the eyes of all these people, don’t you know that this could start
|
| On any street in any town in any state if any clown
|
| Decides that now’s the time to fight for some ideal he thinks is right
|
| And if a million more agree there ain’t no Great Society
|
| As it applies to you and me, our country isn’t free
|
| And the law refuses to see, if all that you can ever be
|
| Is just a lousy janitor unless your uncle owns a store
|
| You know that five in every four just won’t amount to nothin’ more
|
| Gonna watch the rats go across the floor and make up songs about being poor
|
|
|
| Blow your harmonica, son!
|
|
|
| [Kim Fowley] Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
|
|
| Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah
|
|
|
| Ay-yo ee-ow-ee-ow-ee
|
| Veni-ma-no too mah
|
| Veni veni ka toree tor
|
| See’dra votra nee!
|
| Vedi-vedi ki-ta-la tom-bay
|
| Vel-lay ka-la tay-la-tor
|
| Vel-lay kay-la ta-la-sor
|
| Vel-lay kay-lay ka-la-tor
|
| Vel-lay kay-la sa-la-tay
|
| Vor-a kor-ay tor-a-tor
|
| Vel-la kay-la sa-la tch’ay
|
| Vor-a kor-ay kay-a la kur’ad
|
| Vor-a silli kay-t’ay tcha-to
|
| Vor-a kay-ay tay-lay tay-ay tcha-to
|
|
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Pik-a-dill-a do-tchay
|
| Pik-a-li-sa no-say
|
| O-ooh
|
|
|
| Bi-ni-bi-ni me-ho-la-ka ta-ka-ho-ba
|
| Say-kay pay-tay-ho-a-la tur-i-ca
|
| Mee-oo-da-ra
|
| Chil-li pil-li ka-zi-o-bi-a bee bee bee bee
|
| Do-dee-bop
|
| You know…
|
| A-mad hee
|
|
|
| Arrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee
|
| Oooooooooooaaaaaaaaaa
|
| OOOOaaaaaaaaaaa
|
| Ah hah
|
|
|
| O-wee ya yo yo yo a-ki-o wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka a-yi-a-ee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A ki-o-ka o-wee-say ya-vo
|
|
|
| Pedi-goh
|
| Pedi-koh
|
| Ann-i tcho-ee-see-na
|
| Per-a-ko-ee-say
|
| Kar-ra
|
| May-a-ta
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Hay-lo
|
| Pray-lo
|
| Say la do sa ka ho-say
|
| Vay-lay ko say-let-a-no
|
| Vay-la ka sa la to-shay
|
| Va-la ko-lo-tay
|
| Ay-o
|
| Lay-o
|
| Lay-o
|
| Aaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaa
|
| O-ha o-ha yew
|
| Ah-yew
|
| Lay la-fan
|
| Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
|
|
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Somebody!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Wow!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Wow!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Somebody helps me
|
|
|
| Wow, man, it’s a drag being a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| I wish I was anything but a rock
|
| Heck, I’d even like to be a policeman
|
| Hey, you know what?
|
| You know maybe if I practice, you know
|
| Maybe if I pass my driving test
|
| I could get a gig drivin’ that bus that pick the freaks up ▶
|
| In front of Ben Frank’s, right?
|
|
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
|
|
| It’s a drag being a cop
|
| I think I’d rather be the mayor
|
|
|
| Always wondered what I was gonna be when I grew up, you know
|
| Always wondered whether or not… whether or not I could make it
|
| You know, in society, because
|
| You know, it’s a drag when you’re rejected
|
| So I tore the cover off a book of matches
|
| And I sent in
|
| And I got this letter back that said…
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| I’m telling you, my DEAR
|
| That it can’t happen HERE
|
| Because I been checkin’ it out, baby
|
| I checked it out a coupla times
|
| But I’m telling you it can’t happen here
|
|
|
| Oh, darling, it’s important that you believe me
|
| Bop bop bop bop
|
| That it can’t happen here
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out somewhere in Kansas?
|
| Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas
|
| Kansas, Kansas, do-do-dun to-to Kansas, Kansas, la la la
|
| Kansas, Kansas, do-do-dun to-to Kansas, Kansas
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out in Minnesota?
|
| Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi
|
| Mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma
|
| Mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma mama Minnesota
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE…
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out in Washington D.C.?
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| AC/DC do-do-do-dun AC/DC ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma AC/DC
|
| But it can’t happen here
|
| Oh baby, it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| Oh baby, it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It can’t happen here
|
| Everybody’s safe and it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| No freaks for us
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| Everybody’s clean and it can’t happen here
|
| No, no, it won’t happen here
|
| No, no, it won’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| I’m telling you it can’t…
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It won’t happen here
|
| Bop-bop-ditty-bop
|
| I’m not worried at all, I’m not worried at all
|
| Ditty-bop-bop-bop
|
| Plastic folks, you know
|
| It won’t happen here
|
| You’re safe, mama
|
| No, no, no
|
| You’re safe, baby
|
| No, no, no
|
| You just cook a TV dinner
|
| No, no, no
|
| And you make it
|
| Bop bop bop
|
| No, no, no
|
| Oh, we’re gonna get a TV dinner and cook it up
|
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
|
| Oh, get a TV dinner and cook it up
|
| Cook it up
|
| Oh, and it won’t happen here
|
| Who could imagine that they would freak out in the suburbs!
|
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
|
| Man, you guys are really safe
|
| Everything’s cool
|
|
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
|
|
| And they thought it couldn’t HAPPEN HERE
|
| Duh duh duh
|
| They knew it couldn’t happen here
|
| They were so sure it couldn’t happen here, but…
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy? ▶
|
| YES, YES, OH YES! I’VE ALWAYS FELT THAT
|
| YES, I AGREE, MAN, IT REALLY MAKES IT, YEAH!
|
| IT’S A REAL THING, MAN, IT REALLY MAKES IT
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy? You just got to town, and we’ve been… we’ve been very interested in your development
|
|
|
| [Jeannie Vassoir] Forget it!
|
|
|
| Hmmmmmmmmm
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| [Notes by FZ] (Unfinished Ballet in Two Tableaux) I. Ritual Dance of the Child-Killer. II. Nullis Pretii (No commercial potential ▶). It is what freaks sound like when you turn them loose in a recording studio at one o’clock in the morning on $500 worth of rented percussion equipment. A bright snappy number. Hotcha!
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy? ▶
|
| [Jeannie Vassoir] Yes
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy Creamcheese?
|
| [Jeannie Vassoir] Yes
|
|
|
| [FZ] This is the voice of your conscience, baby uh… I just want to check one thing out with ya, you don’t mind, do ya?
|
| [Jeannie Vassoir] What?
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what’s got into ya?
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Cream… cheese
|
| Oh, baby
|
| Oh, wow, yeah, man
|
| It’s happening, man
|
| Ba-jo-la jinga
|
| Flashing, man!
|
| AMERICA’S WONDERFUL!
|
| WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL
|
| It really makes it!
|
| CREAM-cheese
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Wai-ka-vo-jeen-ya do-ra-man-ya
|
| Oh yeah, man, crazy, man, flashing, man
|
| Ma ga-yay-go va-tcha kam ba-jinga wai-ya ka-ma-tay
|
| Oh, wow, yeah, man
|
| It’s happening, man
|
| Ba-jo-la jinga
|
| Flashing, man!
|
| Flashing, man, flashing, man
|
| Oh, wow!
|
| Crazy, man
|
| Skies are blue, baby!
|
| It really makes it!
|
| Oh no
|
| Yes!
|
| Funcha funcha veni meh ka em ma ka-ta-cheek
|
| Flashing, man!
|
| Flashing, flashing
|
|
|
| Moy jing-ya veraña ba keesh-eet
|
| Faster
|
| Moytch moytch ver-rate ver-rate
|
| Faster, higher
|
| Ba-yay-ga va-yay
|
|
|
| Faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, higher, higher, faster, faster, higher, higher, higher, higher
|
| Flashing, flashing, flashing
|
|
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, cream…
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
|
|
| [Backwards]
|
| Creamcheese, cream ch-ch-ch-cheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
|
|
| [Speeded-up]
|
| Cheese
|
| Cheese-cream
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Nothing like creamcheese
|
| Ah
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| I love creamcheese, you love creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Cream-chee-chee-cream-cheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Psychedelic creamcheese!
|
| Cheese! Cheese!
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Cream… cheese
|
|
|
| Did you pick up on that?
|
|
|
| [Speeded-up]
|
| CREAM… cheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| And a Kaiser roll
|
| Creamcheese!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Cream-chee… ese!
|
| Ah
|
| FUCK!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Cream… cheese
|
| Cheese, cheese-cream
|
| Oh no, creamcheese
|
| Cream…
|
| Ah, a-ha!
|
| Cream, cream, cream… CHEESE
|
| CREAM-CHEESE!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| CREAM-CHEESE!
|
| Bop-doo-bop-bop
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Creamcheese, cream-m-m-m-cheese
|
| Cheese?
|
| Ah-ha-ha-ha! Cream… cheese
|
| Ah-ha-ha! Creamcheese
|
| Ah! Ay-ay-ay-ay! Creamcheese
|
| Yay-yay-yay-yay
|
| Yay-no-yay-no-no-no-yay
|
| [Tom Hidley?] OK, “Angry freaks”, take one
|
| [Ami Hadani] “Hungry freaks”, overdub, take one. Vocal overdub one.
|
|
|
| [FZ] Two, one, two, three, four
|
|
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your schools that do not teach
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The minds that won’t be reached
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The emptiness that’s you inside
|
| When once you find that the way you lied
|
| And all the corny tricks you tried
|
| Will not forestall the rising tide
|
| Of hungry freaks, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| EEEEW!
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your supermarket dream
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The liquor store supreme
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The product of your savage pride
|
| The useful minds that it denied
|
| The day you shrugged and stepped aside
|
| You saw their clothes and then you cried:
|
| “Those hungry freaks!”, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
|
|
| [FZ] Obviously, one more time
|
| Any way the wind blows, is-a fine with me
|
| Any way the wind blows, it don’t matter to me
|
| ‘Cause I’m thru with-a fussin’ and-a fightin’ with-a you
|
| I went out and found a woman who is gonna be true
|
| She makes me, oh, so happy, now I’m never ever blue
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| She is my heart and soul and she loves me tenderly
|
| Now ✄ my story can be told, just how good she is to me
|
| Yes, she treats me like she loves me and she never makes me cry
|
| I’m gonna stick with her till the day I die
|
| She’s not like you, baby, she would never ever lie
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
|
|
| Now that I am free from the troubles of the past
|
| Took me much too long to see that our romance couldn’t last
|
| I’m gonna go away and leave you standing at the door
|
| I’ll tell you, pretty baby, I won’t be back no more
|
| ‘Cause you don’t even know what love is for
|
|
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| Any way the wind blows
|
| A year ago today was when you went away
|
| But now you come back knockin’ on my door
|
| And you say you’re back to stay
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| You cheated me, baby, and told some dirty lies about me
|
| Fooled around with all those other guys
|
| That’s why I had to set you free
|
| I sure don’t need you now, I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| A year ago today you went away
|
| Now you come back cryin’, cryin’: “Darling, please let me in”
|
| But I don’t love you, I don’t need you anymore
|
| So go lean on, so go cry on somebody else’s door
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now, I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| Go ahead and cry
|
| Go ahead and let the tears fall out of your eye
|
| Let ‘em fall on your dress
|
| Who cares if it makes a mess?
|
| I gave you my high-school ring
|
| Down at the malt shop, baby
|
| We had a teen-age love
|
| I thought it was charp, it was really so grand, but…
|
|
|
| You cheated me, baby, and told some dirty lies about me
|
| Fooled around with all those other guys
|
| That’s why I had to get my khakis pressed
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
| Well, I don’t love you
|
|
|
| Baby
|
| Darling
|
| I-I-I-I
|
| Is it any wonder
|
| I don’t need you
|
| After the way you treated me at the malt shop
|
| I-I-I-I
|
| That I would come to the conclusion that…
|
| I don’t want you
|
| You never really did dig me anyway
|
| Baby, baby
|
| I don’t know whether it was the amount of rose oil
|
| I use on my Pompadour or…
|
| My, pompous baby
|
| Whether it was… I don’t know…
|
| Whether it was my shoes or my shirt
|
| Oh, baby
|
| Maybe I didn’t button my top button or something
|
| Oh, baby
|
| Maybe it was the sticker on the back of my black Cadillac limousine
|
| That says Mary Poppins is a junkie
|
|
|
| [FZ] One more time
|
|
|
| Ain’t got no heart
|
| I ain’t got no heart to give away
|
| I sit and laugh at fools in love
|
| There ain’t no such thing as love
|
| No angels singing up above today
|
|
|
| Girl, I don’t believe
|
| Girl, I don’t believe in what you say
|
| You say your heart is only mine
|
| I say to you: “You must be blind
|
| What makes you think that you’re so fine
|
|
|
| That I would throw away
|
| The groovy life I lead?
|
| ‘Cause, baby, what you got, yeah
|
| It sure ain’t what I need
|
|
|
| Girl, you’d better go
|
| Girl, you’d better go away
|
| I think that life with you would be
|
| Just not quite the thing for me
|
| Why is it so hard to see my way?
|
|
|
| Why should I be stuck with you?
|
| It’s just not what I want to do
|
| Why should an embrace or two
|
| Make me such a part of you?”
|
| I ain’t got no heart to give away
|
|
|
| [FZ] Think that makes it?
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| The Mothers got love that’ll drive ya mad, they’re ravin’ ‘bout the way we do
|
| No need to feel lonely, no need to feel sad if we ever get ahold on you
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Come on, get it now
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| Nature’s been good to this here band, don’t ever think we’re shy
|
| Send us up some little groupies and we’ll take their hands and rock ‘em till they sweat and cry
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Get it now
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| We can love ya till ya have a heart attack, you’d best believe that’s true
|
| We’ll bite your neck and scratch your back till ya don’t know what to do
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| You know I’ve got a little motherly love for you, baby
|
| Yeah
|
| You know I’ve got a little motherly love for you, honey
|
| Yeah
|
| You know it doesn’t bother me at all that you’re only eighteen years old
|
| ‘Cause I got a little motherly love for you, baby
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Got no place to go
|
| I’m tired of walking up and down the street all by myself
|
| No love left for me to give
|
| I tried and tried, but no one wants me the way I am
|
| Why should I pretend I like to roam from door to door?
|
| Maybe I’ll just kill myself, I just don’t care no more
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Who would care if I was gone?
|
| I never met no one who’d care if I was dead and gone
|
| Who needs me to care for them?
|
| Nobody needs me, why should I just hang around?
|
| Why should I just sit and watch while the others smile?
|
| I just wish that someone cared if I was happy for a while
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
| [Ami Hadani] “You’re probably wondering why I’m here”, vocal overdub, take one
|
|
|
| [FZ] You say you know where it’s at
|
| [Ray Collins] You say you known…
|
| [FZ] And you think…
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| And so am I, so am I
|
|
|
| Just as much as you wonder ‘bout me bein’ in this place
|
| YEAH!
|
| That’s just how much I marvel at the lameness on your face
|
|
|
| You rise each day the same old way
|
| You rise…
|
| [Ray Collins] CUT!
|
|
|
| [FZ] You rise…
|
| [Ray Collins] Hey, is that, uh…
|
| [Engineer] Take two, two
|
|
|
| [FZ] I never thought I’d cut a record by myself, but… I saved up a lot of money, went downtown and… and here we are!
|
|
|
| You’re probably wondering why I’m here
|
| And so am I, so am I
|
|
|
| [Ami Hadani] Want a little feedback there on the speakers
|
| [FZ] One! One, two, three, one, two, three
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
| Well, I’m about to get sick from watchin’ my TV
|
| Been checkin’ out the news until my eyeballs fail to see
|
| I mean to say that every day is just another rotten mess
|
| And when it’s gonna change, my friend, is anybody’s guess
|
|
|
| So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Wednesday I watched the riot, I seen the cops out on the street
|
| Watched ‘em throwin’ rocks and stuff, and chokin’ in the heat
|
| Listened to reports about the whisky passin’ ‘round
|
| Seen the smoke and fire and the market burnin’ down
|
| Watched while everybody on his street would take a turn
|
| To stomp and smash and bash and crash and slash and bust and burn
|
|
|
| And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Well, you can cool it, you can heat it
|
| ‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it
|
| Take your TV tube and eat it
|
| An’ all that phony stuff on sports
|
| An’ all the unconfirmed reports
|
| You know I watched that rotten box
|
| Until my head begin to hurt
|
| From checkin’ out the way
|
| The newsman say they get the dirt
|
| Before the guys on channel so-and-so
|
| And further they assert
|
| That any show they’ll interrupt
|
| To bring you news if it comes up
|
| They say that if the place blows up they will be the first to tell
|
| Because the boys they got downtown are workin’ hard and doin’ swell
|
| And if anybody gets the news before it hits the street
|
| They say that no one blabs it faster, their coverage can’t be beat
|
| And if another woman driver gets machine-gunned from her seat
|
| They’ll send some joker with a brownie and you’ll see it all complete
|
|
|
| So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Hey, you know something people?
|
| I’m not black, but there’s a whole lots a times I wish I could say I’m not white
|
|
|
| Well, I seen the fires burnin’
|
| And the local people turnin’
|
| On the merchants and the shops
|
| Who used to sell their brooms and mops
|
| And every other household item
|
| Watched a mob just turn and bite ‘em
|
| And they say it served ‘em right
|
| Because a few of them were white
|
| And it’s the same across the nation
|
| Black and white discrimination
|
| Yellin’: “You can’t understand me”
|
| An’ all that other jazz they hand me
|
| In the papers and TV
|
| And all that mass stupidity
|
| That seems to grow more every day
|
| Each time you hear some nitwit say
|
| He wants to go and do you in
|
| Because the color of your skin
|
| Just don’t appeal to him
|
| No matter if it’s black or white
|
| Because he’s out for blood tonight
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| You know we got to sit around at home and watch this thing begin
|
| But I bet there won’t be many live to see it really end
|
| ‘Cause the fire in the street ain’t like the fire in the heart
|
| And in the eyes of all these people, don’t you know that this could start
|
| On any street in any town in any state if any clown
|
| Decides that now’s the time to fight for some ideal he thinks is right
|
| And if a million more agree there ain’t no Great Society
|
| As it applies to you and me, our country isn’t free
|
| And the law refuses to see, if all that you can ever be
|
| Is just a lousy janitor unless your uncle owns a store
|
| You know that five in every four just won’t amount to nothin’ more
|
| Gonna watch the rats go across the floor and make up songs about being poor
|
|
|
| Blow your harmonica, son!
|
|
|
| [Kim Fowley] Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
|
|
| Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah
|
|
|
| Ay-yo ee-ow-ee-ow-ee
|
| Veni-ma-no too mah
|
| Veni veni ka toree tor
|
| See’dra votra nee!
|
| Vedi-vedi ki-ta-la tom-bay
|
| Vel-lay ka-la tay-la-tor
|
| Vel-lay kay-la ta-la-sor
|
| Vel-lay kay-lay ka-la-tor
|
| Vel-lay kay-la sa-la-tay
|
| Vor-a kor-ay tor-a-tor
|
| Vel-la kay-la sa-la tch’ay
|
| Vor-a kor-ay kay-a la kur’ad
|
| Vor-a silli kay-t’ay tcha-to
|
| Vor-a kay-ay tay-lay tay-ay tcha-to
|
|
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Klanna-tholl
|
| Pik-a-dill-a do-tchay
|
| Pik-a-li-sa no-say
|
| O-ooh
|
|
|
| Bi-ni-bi-ni me-ho-la-ka ta-ka-ho-ba
|
| Say-kay pay-tay-ho-a-la tur-i-ca
|
| Mee-oo-da-ra
|
| Chil-li pil-li ka-zi-o-bi-a bee bee bee bee
|
| Do-dee-bop
|
| You know…
|
| A-mad hee
|
|
|
| Arrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee
|
| Oooooooooooaaaaaaaaaa
|
| OOOOaaaaaaaaaaa
|
| Ah hah
|
|
|
| O-wee ya yo yo yo a-ki-o wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka a-yi-a-ee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A-ki-o-ka o-ki-o-wee
|
| A ki-o-ka o-wee-say ya-vo
|
|
|
| Pedi-goh
|
| Pedi-koh
|
| Ann-i tcho-ee-see-na
|
| Per-a-ko-ee-say
|
| Kar-ra
|
| May-a-ta
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Uh-oh
|
| Hay-lo
|
| Pray-lo
|
| Say la do sa ka ho-say
|
| Vay-lay ko say-let-a-no
|
| Vay-la ka sa la to-shay
|
| Va-la ko-lo-tay
|
| Ay-o
|
| Lay-o
|
| Lay-o
|
| Aaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaa
|
| O-ha o-ha yew
|
| Ah-yew
|
| Lay la-fan
|
| Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
|
| Er-ooh
|
| Ah ah ah ah ah
|
| Ber-oo-ooh
|
| Wer-oo-ooh
|
| Ba-by-oh
|
| Ba-by-oh
|
| Ba-by-oh
|
| Ah ah ah ah
|
|
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Somebody!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Please!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Wow!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Wow!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Somebody helps me
|
|
|
| Wow, man, it’s a drag being a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| I wish I was anything but a rock
|
| Heck, I’d even like to be a policeman
|
| Hey, you know what?
|
| You know maybe if I practice, you know
|
| Maybe if I pass my driving test
|
| I could get a gig drivin’ that bus that pick the freaks up ▶
|
| In front of Ben Frank’s, right?
|
|
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
| Help, I’m a cop!
|
| Help, I’m a rock
|
|
|
| It’s a drag being a cop
|
| I think I’d rather be the mayor
|
|
|
| Always wondered what I was gonna be when I grew up, you know
|
| Always wondered whether or not… whether or not I could make it
|
| You know, in society, because
|
| You know, it’s a drag when you’re rejected
|
| So I tore the cover off a book of matches
|
|
|
| I’m gonna die
|
| I’m dying
|
| Oh oh… oh, it feels good
|
| I’m dying
|
|
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Darn it, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Help, I’m a rock, it’s a drag
|
| Help, I’m a rock, it’s a drag
|
| Help, I’m a rock!
|
| Poo-poo-pah-pah!
|
| Poo-poo-pah!
|
| Yeah!
|
| Goo-goo-koo
|
| Goo-goo-koo!
|
|
|
| Waah! Get it on, baby
|
| Do your thing
|
| Turn me on, baby
|
|
|
| [Engineer] OK? Rolling, two
|
| [FZ] One, two, one, two, three
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| [FZ] One more
|
|
|
| Rolling? This is…
|
| Yeah, but don’t give him that. Are you in there?
|
| Sixty-six, x-y, fifty-six
|
| “Groupie bang bang”
|
| Take one
|
|
|
| [FZ] Or “Groupie gang bang”, if you prefer. One, two, one, two, three, four.
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| She got buns like a battleship
|
| Balls every dude on the Sunset Strip
|
| Shakes ‘em down, boy, every night
|
| Rolls in bed till the broad daylight
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| Lord knows where she gets her bread
|
| But the boys all say she gives good head
|
| Got to see that girl tonight
|
| Ain’t been laid since ten last night
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| Byrds and Stones dig the way she dance
|
| And every damn one gets in her pants
|
| Paul McCartney and Ringo too
|
| Says she balls better than Epstein do
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| Please don’t think I’m puttin’ you on
|
| You think by now she’d be all gone
|
| I know she’s savin’ some for me
|
| Best thing about her: it’s all free
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| Took her home with me last night
|
| Tore off her clothes and turned down the light
|
| Had her boogie on my lap
|
| Four days later I had the clap
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| She’s my groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang…
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang…
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
| Groupie bang bang…
|
| Groupie bang bang
|
|
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Nothing like creamcheese
|
| Ah
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| I love creamcheese, you love creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Cream-chee-chee-cream-cheese
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Psychedelic creamcheese!
|
| Cheese! Cheese!
|
| Creamcheese, creamcheese
|
| Cream… cheese
|
|
|
| Did you pick up on that?
|
|
|
| CREAM… cheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| And a Kaiser roll
|
| Creamcheese!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Cream-chee… ese!
|
| Ah
|
| FUCK!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Creamcheese
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Cream… cheese
|
| Cheese, cheese-cream
|
| Oh no, creamcheese
|
| Cream…
|
| Ah, a-ha!
|
| Cream, cream, cream… CHEESE
|
| CREAM-CHEESE!
|
| Creamcheese
|
| CREAM-CHEESE!
|
| Bop-doo-bop-bop
|
| Cream-cheese
|
| Creamcheese, cream-m-m-m-cheese
|
| Cheese?
|
| Ah-ha-ha-ha! Cream… cheese
|
| Ah-ha-ha! Creamcheese
|
| Ah! Ay-ay-ay-ay! Creamcheese
|
| Yay-yay-yay-yay
|
| Yay-no-yay-no-no-no-yay
|
|
|
| [FZ] Ray! Ray!
|
|
|
| [FZ] That drum there is the D, isn’t it? […]
|
| [FZ] Bom bom
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| […]
|
| [FZ] Want to roll one?
|
| […]
|
| [Ami Hadani] Ah. All right.
|
| […]
|
| [FZ] I want to get away from that generally bullshit sound. You know, get another…
|
|
|
| [Ami Hadani] Go on, Frank
|
| [FZ] All right
|
| [Ami Hadani] God knows what, one
|
| [FZ] All right. We’re rolling?
|
| [Ami Hadani] You’re on
|
| [FZ] OK. Percussion insert number one, take one
|
| […]
|
| [FZ] One, two, one, two, three, four
|
|
|
| [FZ] Take two
|
| […]
|
| [Ami Hadani] Take two
|
| [FZ] One… Quiet please. One, two, one, two, three, four.
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Beautiful! Beautiful!
|
|
|
| [FZ] Ladies and gentlemen, attention, please. I’d really like to thank you for coming up here to this uh… musical thing, and uh… when the record comes out you can all buy it, and listen to yourselves freaking out or… you know. Maybe we’ll go down to Canter’s and grease a few copies, but we have to clear the room right now because we gotta do some things here… yeah, oh. Would you please leave as swiftly as possible. Although it’s, you know, nice of you to come by, we gotta get you out in a hurry so we can finish recording some of these things. Thank you very much.
|
|
|
| I would als—… (No) I would also like to request that everybody kindly leave all the instruments in the studio. They don’t belong to us. Bless your hearts.
|
|
|
| Please, I have to ask you to hurry and clear the room. The studio time is costing us a fortune every minute, and we’ve gotta finish it off, ‘cause we’re still a low-budget rock & roll band. We haven’t worked for six fucking weeks. Please leave the room.
|
|
|
| Seven weeks
|
|
|
| Hurry up and get it and get back in, ‘cause we’re gonna lock the door
|
|
|
| Danny Hutton, can I grease you for a ride somewhere?
|
| Who’s driving?
|
|
|
| [Willy] Frank, who is Suzy Creamcheese? ▶
|
| [FZ] Well, I’ll have to answer you in the same tone of voice that you asked in
|
| [Willy] Sound like Edward R. Murrow, heh
|
| [FZ] Well, her real name is Pamela Lee Zarubica and she’s living in Los Angeles right now, trying to grow her buns back
|
| [Willy] I… I don’t believe…
|
| [Other interviewer] We… We can’t…
|
| [Willy] No touchy
|
|
|
| [Other interviewer] Why… Why Suzy Creamcheese?
|
| [FZ] Well, that’s explanatory in the music, yeah
|
| [Other interviewer] Is it? Great…
|
| [Willy] No, no, I don’t think it is, I’m… now, being the slowest person probably in this studio right now, I would like…
|
| [FZ] Oh, Willy, don’t be so self-deprecating, come on, Willy
|
| [Willy] Well, I’m not known for my modesty, all right. I admit it. Guilty. No, really. Really and seriously.
|
| [FZ] What’s the deal, Willy? What are you trying to tell me?
|
|
|
| [Willy] How uh… you know, how… how did uh… really, she acquire the name Suzy Creamcheese? You really get…
|
| [FZ] It’s simple. It’s really very simple. First of all, there was no Suzy Creamcheese to begin with.
|
|
|
| [Willy] And you thought we needed it? The world needed it?
|
| [FZ] I’m sure the world needed one. I mean, that’s self-evident, because now there are more than one Suzy Cream— they’re all over the place.
|
| [Willy] Yeah
|
| [FZ] A lot of people have adopted that concept. But the original Suzy Creamcheese was a figment of my imagination that occurred during a two or three week stay in Hawaii when we were working at a horrible club there called “Da Swamp”.
|
| [Other interviewer] Da Swamp?
|
| [FZ] Spelled D-A Swamp. There was a… was a…
|
|
|
| [Willy] What’d the owner look… was he a stereotype, you know, three feet, four feet wide, bald?
|
| [FZ] No, we never met the owner, you know, it was… I don’t…
|
| [Other interviewer] He didn’t bother
|
| [FZ] I shudder to think who actually owned Da Swamp, but our clientele was sailors of the world. The most exciting night that we had there, well, there were two exciting nights, one I can’t tell you on the air, and the other one was the time we had some sailors from New Zealand come in, and they were really drunk and they were dancing with each other. It was really quite picturesque. These, like, New Zealand sailors dancing together, it was really good.
|
| [Willy] Hm
|
| [FZ] And uh… there was nothing to do, Hawaii’s a dull place
|
| [Willy] You just look at it, you know, looks like a postcard with nothing to do
|
| [FZ] It sure does look like a postcard, it was frightening. It looks so much like a postcard, you know. It made you feel two-dimensional just being there. So, I spent a lot of time in the uh… motel room of this fantastic place right behind Da Swamp, it was called “Da Surfboard Motel”.
|
|
|
| [FZ] Green stucco, bugs everywhere, it was neat. And I had this little typewriter there, so I cranked off the liner notes for the “Freak Out!” album and thinking of the packaging for the back of it, I came up with the idea of Suzy Creamcheese, who would be a very pure sort of girl who would be ultimately offended by the presence in the music industry of a rancid group like the Mothers of Invention. So she was conceived as a stereotype of the… the uh… American perennial virgin type with the sort of white, pleated skirt and perhaps some rolled stockings going down into some loafer shoes and maybe a little sweater with a pin on it or something.
|
| [Other interviewer] A letter?
|
| [FZ] Yeah, a key of some sort. And uh…
|
| [Willy] Sorority pin?
|
| [FZ] Yeah
|
| [?] Sounds like Virginia Beach
|
|
|
| [FZ] So uh… I imagined this girl and how she would respond to an album such as “Freak Out!”. So I composed the letter that’s on the back, where the girl is making a complaint to her teacher about how rancid we were supposed to be.
|
| And everybody thought it was real, simply because it was printed in a typewriter script on the back. Nobody ever considered for a moment that it was uh… just strictly imaginary. And the… Where it says: “Sincerely forever, Suzy Creamcheese”, I mean, that never occurred to anybody that… that was a little too weird to have on the back of an album. So a lot of people identified with Suzy Creamcheese and then, when we were ready to go to Europe the first time, we discovered that people there were more interested in seeing Suzy Creamcheese than they were in seeing us. Not quite, but it was at a hysteria peak in certain areas. So we decided that it would be best to bring along a Suzy Creamcheese replica who would demonstrate once and for all the veracity of such a beast. So, I checked around to see who would be willing to go along with the gag and… Pamela was willing and… she was available and…
|
|
|
| [Willy] She did the voice on the album also?
|
| [FZ] No, no, that was another girl that did the voice on the album, her name was Jeannie Vassoir, which we can’t find her anymore, she disappeared, she went to Mexico or someplace
|
| [Willy] Hm
|
| [FZ] Anyway, there… there was no way to get ahold of Jeannie Vassoir and uh… Pamela was available and was interested in the concept, so I said: “OK, here’s your ticket, come on”. And so she did the tour with us in Europe and has maintained the title ever since.
|
| [Other interviewer] Of The Suzy Creamcheese?
|
| [FZ] Yeah
|
| [Willy] Does uh…
|
| [FZ] Such a distinction
|
|
|
| [Willy] Has uh… people as a crowd ever uh… kind of ask for her anymore at a performance?
|
| [FZ] In Europe, sometimes, still they do. But you find that only in very retarded areas. We noticed uh… you know, some areas are retarded, the… that certain information does not leak through, and a good example of that is uh… there’s some places in the south where network television does not come in. So, you’re not going to receive anything on your television station other than Grand Ole Opry plus what the local politicos want you to hear. And so, same thing with radio stations, the format of certain radio stations does not permit certain types of information reaching that public. In a town that’s sealed up ▶ uh… if the electronic media is sealed up in a town, you can imagine what the print media must be like. And consequently, that reaches into commercial areas like record distribution and things like that where certain things just don’t leak through in certain areas and they therefore become retarded.
|
|
|
| [Bill Graham] The word “beautiful” is used erroneously, but these are very beautiful people: the Mothers
|
|
|
| Whatcha need is…
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
| Oh-oh
|
|
|
| The Mothers got love that’ll drive ya mad, they’re ravin’ ‘bout the way we do
|
| No need to be horny, no need to be sad if we ever get ahold on you
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
| Oh-oh
|
|
|
| Nature’s been good to this here band, don’t ever think we’re shy
|
| Send us up some little groupies and we’ll take their hands and rock ‘em till they sweat and cry
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
|
|
| We can love ya till ya have a heart attack, you’d best believe that’s true
|
| We’ll bite your neck and scratch your back till ya don’t know what to do
|
| What you need is…
|
|
|
| Motherly love
|
| Motherly love
|
| Forget about the brotherly and other-ly love
|
| Motherly love is just the thing for you
|
| You know your Mothers gonna love ya till ya don’t know what to do
|
| Oh-oh
|
|
|
| [Ray Collins] Thank you
|
|
|
| [FZ] Uh… We’re supposed to plug our album, some of which are on sale in the back of the building. It’s a pretty commercial thing to do, but we’re in this for the money. The name of this song is “You didn’t try to call me”.
|
| You didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| No matter who I take home, I keep on callin’ your name
|
| And you… I need you so bad, ‘cause you’re The One, babe
|
|
|
| Tell me, tell me, who’s lovin’ you now
|
| ‘Cause it worries my mind and I can’t sleep at all
|
| I stayed home on Friday just to wait for your call
|
|
|
| And you didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| No matter who I take home, I keep on callin’ your name
|
| And you… I need you so bad, ‘cause you’re The One, babe
|
|
|
| Tell me, tell me, who’s lovin’ you now
|
| ‘Cause it worries my mind and I can’t sleep at all
|
| I stayed home on Friday just to wait for your call
|
|
|
| I can’t say what’s right or what’s wrong
|
| But I love you
|
| All you gotta do is call me, babe
|
| ‘Cause I want you
|
|
|
| You make me feel so excited, girl!
|
| I’ve got so hung up on you from the moment that we met
|
| That no matter how I try, I can’t keep the tears
|
| From running down my face, I’m all alone in my place
|
|
|
| You didn’t try to call me
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try? Didn’t you know I was lonely?
|
| Baby!
|
| Why didn’t you try, didn’t you try?
|
| I said I love you, oh girl!
|
| I stayed home all afternoon, baby
|
| I need you, I need you
|
| I was polishing my car
|
| I need you, girl
|
| And there I was… I was watching television, you didn’t try to call me
|
| Momma, why don’t you dig me anymore?
|
| We were always really close together in study hall
|
| And now it seems as though our teen-age love is all shot to shit, baby
|
| What is it?
|
| Don’t I use enough rose oil on my Pompadour?
|
| I don’t know what the fuck’s the matter, man
|
| I been trying so hard!
|
| I… I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried over again
|
| About, oh, fifteen or sixteen times
|
| All I wanted to do was get in your pants, baby
|
| What is it?
|
| Don’t you love me anymore?
|
|
|
| GIRL!
|
|
|
| [Ray Collins] Thank you
|
|
|
| [FZ] We’d like to bring up our traveling dance troupe, our ballet company, The Mothers’ Ballet Company, otherwise known as the “Cherry Sisters”
|
|
|
| Now a hot little number called “I’m not satisfied”
|
|
|
| One, two, one, two, three, four
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Yeah!
|
|
|
| Got no place to go
|
| I’m tired of walking up and down the street all by myself
|
| No love left for me to give
|
| I tried and tried, but no one wants me the way I am
|
| Why should I pretend I like to roam from door to door?
|
| I’ll just kill myself, I just don’t care no more
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| YEAH!
|
|
|
| Yeah!
|
|
|
| Who would care if I was gone?
|
| I never met no one who’d care if I was dead and gone
|
| Who needs me to care for them?
|
| Nobody needs me, why should I just hang around?
|
| Why should I just sit and watch while the others smile?
|
| I just wish that someone cared if I was happy for a while
|
|
|
| Because I’m not satisfied
|
| Everything I tried
|
| I don’t like the way
|
| Life has been abusing me
|
|
|
| [FZ] Thank you. Now, gang, we’re gonna have a little song called “Hungry freaks, daddy”.
|
| Hope we remember it, we’ve been out of work for a long time.
|
| One, two, one, two, three, four
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your schools that do not teach
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The minds that won’t be reached
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The emptiness that’s you inside
|
| When once you find that the way you lied
|
| And all those corny tricks you tried
|
| Will not forestall the rising tide
|
| Of hungry freaks, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Hungry freaks, daddy
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| Your supermarket dream
|
| Mister America, walk on by
|
| The liquor store supreme
|
| Mister America, try to hide
|
| The product of your savage pride
|
| The useful minds that it denied
|
| The day you shrugged and stepped aside
|
| You saw their clothes and then you cried:
|
| “Those hungry freaks!”, daddy
|
|
|
| They won’t go for no more
|
| Great midwestern hardware store
|
| Philosophy that turns away
|
| From those who aren’t afraid to say
|
| What’s on their minds
|
| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
|
|
|
| [Ray Collins] Thank you kindly
|
|
|
| [FZ] I’d like to tell you what that message was, but can’t do that. It has immediate bearing on the rest of the evening. A surprise for ya.
|
|
|
| A year ago today was when you went away
|
| But now you come back knockin’ on my door
|
| And you say you wanna buy some acid
|
| But I say…
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| (Oh, my darling!)
|
|
|
| You cheated me, baby, and told some dirty lies about me
|
| Fooled around with all those other guys
|
| That’s why I had to set you free
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| A year ago today was when you went away
|
| And now you come back cryin’: “Darling, please let me in”
|
| Oh, I don’t need you, I don’t love you anymore
|
| So go lay your body on somebody else’s floor
|
|
|
| Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder
|
| I’m somewhat wiser now and one whole year older
|
| I sure don’t need you now and I don’t love you anymore
|
|
|
| (Oh, baby!)
|
|
|
| Go ahead and cry
|
| Go ahead and let the tears fall out of your eye
|
| Let ‘em fall on your crotch
|
| You know how I love to watch
|
| I gave you my high-school ring
|
| At the Hippo Burger, baby
|
| We had a teen-age love
|
| And you still got pregnant
|
| [?] Hole seems…
|
| [Engineer] Five
|
| [Engineer] Twenty-five
|
|
|
| [FZ] One, two, three, one, two, three
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| [FZ] One…
|
| [Engineer] “Who are the brain police?”, section C, take one
|
| [FZ] One, two, three, one, two, three
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
|
|
| [FZ] Ready?
|
|
|
| [Engineer] OK. Rolling, three
|
| [FZ] One, two, one, two, three
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
| [Engineer] Eighteen
|
| [FZ] One, two, one, two, three, four
|
|
|
| [Instrumental]
|
| Well, I’m about to get sick from watchin’ my TV
|
| Been checkin’ out the news until my eyeballs fail to see
|
| I mean to say that every day is just another rotten mess
|
| And when it’s gonna change, my friend, is anybody’s guess
|
|
|
| So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| Wednesday I watched the riot, I seen the cops out on the street
|
| Watched ‘em throwin’ rocks and stuff, and chokin’ in the heat
|
| Listened to reports about the whisky passin’ ‘round
|
| Seen the smoke and fire and the market burnin’ down
|
| Watched while everybody on his street would take a turn
|
| To stomp and smash and bash and crash and slash and bust and burn
|
|
|
| And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’, hopin’ for the best
|
| Even think I’ll go to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’
|
| That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
| No way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
|
|
|
| You know we got to sit around at home and watch this thing begin
|
| But I bet there won’t be many live to see it really end
|
| ‘Cause the fire in the street ain’t like the fire in the heart
|
| And in the eyes of all these people, don’t you know that this could start
|
| On any street in any town in any state if any clown
|
| Decides that now’s the time to fight for some ideal he thinks is right
|
| And if a million more agree there ain’t no Great Society
|
| As it applies to you and me, our country isn’t free
|
| And the law refuses to see, if all that you can ever be
|
| Is just a lousy janitor unless your uncle owns a store
|
| You know that five in every four just won’t amount to nothin’ more
|
| Gonna watch the rats go across the floor and make up songs about being poor
|
|
|
| Blow your harmonica, son!
|
|
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| I’m telling you, my DEAR
|
| That it can’t happen HERE
|
| Because I been checkin’ it out, baby
|
| I checked it out a coupla times
|
| But I’m telling you it can’t happen here
|
|
|
| Oh, darling, it’s important that you believe me
|
| Bop bop bop bop
|
| That it can’t happen here
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out somewhere in Kansas?
|
| Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas
|
| Kansas, Kansas, do-do-dun to-to Kansas, Kansas, la la la
|
| Kansas, Kansas, do-do-dun to-to Kansas, Kansas
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out in Minnesota?
|
| Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi
|
| Mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma
|
| Mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, mama Minnesota, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma mama Minnesota
|
|
|
| Who COULD IMAGINE that they would freak out in Washington D.C.?
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| AC/DC do-do-do-dun AC/DC ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma AC/DC
|
| But it can’t happen here
|
| Oh baby, it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| Oh baby, it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It can’t happen here
|
| Everybody’s safe and it can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| No freaks for us
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It can’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| Everybody’s clean and it can’t happen here
|
| No, no, it won’t happen here
|
| No, no, it won’t happen here
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| I’m telling you it can’t…
|
| AC/DC bop-bop-bop
|
| It won’t happen here
|
| Bop-bop-ditty-bop
|
| I’m not worried at all, I’m not worried at all
|
| Ditty-bop-bop-bop
|
| Plastic folks, you know
|
| It won’t happen here
|
| You’re safe, mama
|
| No, no, no
|
| You’re safe, baby
|
| No, no, no
|
| You just cook a TV dinner
|
| No, no, no
|
| And you make it
|
| Bop bop bop
|
| No, no, no
|
| Oh, we’re gonna get a TV dinner and cook it up
|
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
|
| Oh, get a TV dinner and cook it up
|
| Cook it up
|
| Oh, and it won’t happen here
|
| Who could imagine that they would freak out in the suburbs!
|
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
|
| Man, you guys are really safe
|
| Everything’s cool
|
|
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| I remember Tu-tu
|
| They had a swimming pool
|
|
|
| And they thought it couldn’t HAPPEN HERE
|
| Duh duh duh
|
| They knew it couldn’t happen here
|
| They were so sure it couldn’t happen here, but…
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy? ▶
|
| YES, YES, OH YES! I’VE ALWAYS FELT THAT
|
| YES, I AGREE, MAN, IT REALLY MAKES IT, YEAH!
|
| Psychedelic!
|
| IT’S A REAL THING, MAN, IT REALLY MAKES IT
|
|
|
| [FZ] Suzy? You just got to town, and we’ve been… we’ve been very interested in your development since you first took the shots
|
|
|
| [Jeannie Vassoir] Forget it!
|
|
|
| Hmmmmmmmmm
|
| It can’t happen HERE
|
| Can’t happen HERE
|
| Can’t happen HERE
|
| [FZ] Well, you see, at the time “Freak Out!” came out, there was no such thing as psychedelic music. And there was no such thing as Suzy Creamcheese ▶, or “Freak Out!”, or… that wasn’t the happening thing. And the use of the word “freak out” in Los Angeles, as a colloquial localism uh… referred to… and there’s an explanation in the album ▲, you know, had this whole thing about people getting together and dancing and doing this big thing, and that’s what the scene was in L.A., and that’s what the intent of the title was to convey. Not a bad LSD trip, or… weirdness. It’s just… people uh…
|
|
|
| For instance, in… in Pachuco slang… Do you know anything about Pachucos? Pachucos, during uh… the season when they were really happening uh… they’re Mexican youths who wore a certain type of clothing. That’s where peggers came from, real tight at the ankles, and then gradually getting bigger here, pleated fronts on the pants, one-button rolled pink flannel coats, key chains, now, zoot suit guys, all right? Uh… They have a peculiar sort of slang, which is based on Spanish, but words change in pronunciation from area to area. One… A Spanish ghetto in one city will say a word one way and uh… in another state, the same ghetto is gonna say it a different way. The word means basically the same thing, but the context in which it use… is used may change, like uh… there’s an expression uh… that means “gee whiz!”, in one place it may be “Híjola”, in another place it may be “Hijuela”. And… language is not really adequate for communicating ideas, you know, when you have to… The only way you’re really gonna be able to get ideas across is when people can think ‘em to each other. Words really get in the way, so you get hung up in the packaging expressions.
|
|
|
| I was offended when uh… Capitol put out an album that had a glossary of uh… terms in there that described “freak out” as a bad LSD trip. ‘Cause I thought people would start associating our album with uh… that. And… And they did. What can you do?
|
| [FZ] When they first heard us, we were working at a club in Hollywood called “The Whisky a Go Go” and the A&R man uh… producer, Tom Wilson, came in, he heard us play one song, it was the Watts riot song. And that’s sort of a R&B type thing. So, he figures: “Oh, topical R&B group! Just what we need!”, you know? So, he phones up the company: “Yeah, we got one”, da dat dat da…
|
| We get into the studio, you know, two months later we go into the studio to record and they didn’t know what was happening. He got on the phone, we, first we did “Any way the wind blows”, that was the first thing we recorded, and the second thing we did was “Who are the brain police?”, and by the time we finished “Brain police” his head was going around like this, you know, and he says: “Wait, what happened to that other one that I heard at the Whisky a Go Go?” and he called back to New York and he said: “We got something strange happening here” and the whole project just expanded incredibly, you know. Everybody got real thrilled all of a sudden, they thought they really had a hot item on their hands. Then, the cost of recording “Freak Out!” kept booming uh… instead of starting off saying: “Well, you guys uh… you guys are real swell, we’re gonna give ya twenty-thousand dollars” which is approximately four times the cost of the average rock & roll album to manufacture “and you’re going to turn out one heck of a good album”, instead, they kept trying to keep the budget down; but it expanded up to twenty-thousand dollars. They reached that point, they didn’t wanna spend any more and figured: “Well, it’ll sell, we’ll spend five thousand dollars promoting it”.
|
| So when it was finally put on the stands, our promotion budget on the album was what you’d call peanuts. “Absolutely Free” had a promotion budget of twenty-five thousand dollars and, consequently, got up to about number 20 on the charts. “Freak Out!” never got up to number 20 on the charts, but it’s still selling after about a year and a half and it sells, regularly, between four and eight thousand copies a week and it won’t stop.
|
| [Matt Biberfeld] There’s a story that… during one of your recording sessions, during one of the numbers you were recording, there were some friends who uh… were saying a BAD WORD, right there into the microphone. And that you left it in the record because you figured that nobody would ever believe that… they were saying that bad word. Is that… Is that true?
|
| [FZ] No, I’m the one who said the bad word, and I left it in there because I wanted to leave it in there, I wanted to test the intelligence of the record company. Let me show you how this works. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, in side four of the “Freak Out!” album, if you’ll play it at a very slow speed and wait for just the right moment, you’ll hear a tiny voice in the background saying “FUCK!” Beep it out, that’s it, you little devils. And the reason you hear that in there is because at that point, I was making some noises inside of a piano, I was dropping things on the strings of the piano, and my hand got underneath of one of the things that I was dropping on the piano and it smashed my finger, and it was one of those agonized cries. Well, I figured we might as well leave it in, why chop it out? Because at that point I knew that MGM was starting to censor things in the album that I thought were really ridiculous.
|
| For instance, today the word “psychedelic” is a great teen-age uh… commercial item. Uh… MGM was afraid of that word in this first album. I had that word in an echo chamber, just said once in the middle of one of the tracks. They said: “We can’t have that! It sounds too much like dope fiend music”. They chopped it out. There was another line at the very end of uh… one of the selections, where the voice says: “Suzy, we’ve been very interested in your development since you first took the shots”. And she says: “Forget it”. They had to take out “since you first took the shots”, because it sounded like dope fiend music, when actually all we were talking about is a little paraffin injection.
|
| [FZ] Now, we come to the question of specific electronic effects, that been requested to explain to you how some of the noises we got on the “Freak Out!” album were manufactured. On the second disc of “Freak Out!” we have one long tune which is called “The return of the son of Monster Magnet”. This was an unfortunate incident. I’m still a little bit angry that the company did not allow me to finish the composition. What you hear on the album is the rhythm track, that is just like the basic foundation for a piece of music that was never completed, and they… now see how they can take it upon themselves to release an uncompleted piece, but they did, and a number of people come out to me and say how wonderful it is, but I think it is really crappy, and I’ll tell you how we made it sound that way.
|
| The rhythm consists of one set of drums, and about $500 worth of rented percussion equipment. Y’know, 5… the rental of $500 is for one night. We have the whole room filled with all kind of drums and had about a couple of hundred people in the room just sat banging the drums and make any kind of noise you want and recorded the great deal of this type of sound, sort of spontaneous hokum. Then, this was listened to, sifted through, the choice of noises were picked out, edited together, and superimposed on a basic rhythm track of the drums and uh… two or three oscillators, and uh… sounds played inside of a grand piano, dropping things on the strings of the piano, plucking, smashing, ranting and bashing uh… noise. This is all assembled to create the first… about… the first half of the composition.
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| The second half, it is built mainly on vocal sounds modified by changing the speed of the tape and different equalization characteristics, which is to say, equalization is uh… electronic dealy, whereby you can emphasize certain frequencies of uh… a voice or an instrument or a type of sound. It’s like the bass and treble controls on your amplifier or your hi-fi set. Except that in the studio you have the capabilities of emphasizing specific frequencies. If you were, let’s say, to emphasize the 500 cycle component of a given sound, if you emphasize 500 cycles on a voice, the voice tends to become fat and blurry. If, however, you’re boosting the voice at 4000 cycles it will become crisp. And it is also conceivable, that if you boost at these… both these components at the same time you might have a fat blurry crisp voice.
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| We do not uh… have a great deal of money to experiment around with all of the possibilities for studio usage right now. But one of these days, when we get rich, we’ll be able to go into the studio and grab ahold of every knob we can get our hands on and turn ‘em all and see what they will do to the sound of normal instruments and to the sound of voices. Within the scope of our limited teen-age budget we have managed to make unusual sounds out of everyday household variety human voices and rock & roll instruments.
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| It’s quite possible to mangle the sound of… any— anything in the studio. You can take, for instance, the sound of a voice and by using the device known as a filter, instead of boosting certain acoustical components of the voice, you can eliminate them. Filters chop sounds out. If you were to filter a voice at 750 cycles, which is to say that all sound below 750 is removed, you get the effect of a cardboard voice, sort of like what Paul McCartney got on one of those songs on uh… “Revolver” album, I figure which one… I think “Within you and without you”. No, it’s not, I don’t know what I’m talking about, now, anyway, I never listen to the Beatles. But he did this one where he sounds just like this weasely voice in the background, it’s a filtered voice, and a more simplified version of the technique is to be heard in uh… ♫ “Winchester cathedral”, where it sounds like megaphone a go-go.
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| [Matt Biberfeld] What do you think about the uh… current state of rock & roll? There’s psychedelic rock, blues rock, folk rock uh…
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| [FZ] Poop rock
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| [Matt Biberfeld] All kinds of rock and uh… now the Beatles are com— are coming out with songs which, to some people, are putting on the audience. The new uh… single.
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| [FZ] You don’t think the Beatles have always put on their audience?
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| [Matt Biberfeld] Well, now more blatantly, I think uh… with…
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| [FZ] What could be more blatant than ♫ “I wanna hold your hand”?
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| [Matt Biberfeld] Well, have you heard the Beatles’ new uh…
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| [FZ] I have the new “Sgt. Pepper” album
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| [Matt Biberfeld] “Sgt. Pepper”
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| [FZ] I’d like to thank them very much for doing a wonderful take-off on “Freak Out!” during ♫ the song about Rita the meter maid. I thought that it was very clever to have people wheezing, huffing and panting in the background with the music still going on.
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| [FZ] Uh… They do know that we exist in Europe. The album sells well in Sweden and uh… in Holland. Not… It doesn’t sell as well in uh… England, but that’s mainly the fault of the record company, because when they released it there, they just pressed it and put it on the stand without any concurrent publicity, and you have to have a certain amount of uh… machinery to get the ball rolling. But it has been wha— what you might call an underground success because… my sources inform me that most of the groups over there have a copy and listen to it regularly, faithfully. Eric Burdon from the Animals ▲ liked it very well, he performs uh… several of the songs from the first album with his group. And the Who were interested in “Who are the brain police?” for a single, I was told.
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| [Interviewer] What do you think’s gonna be next, after psychedelic?
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| [FZ] Somebody’s gotta prove to me first that “psychedelic music” exists. Really, you know. Let’s… Let’s be serious about this, if you say “country and western”, yes, that exists as a label for a type of music, but “psychedelic”, you know, what is that? It’s just a label that somebody in a company stuck on it. And right now they’re using the same word to sell dresses in somebody’s store.
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| [Interviewer] Yeah, OK. Well, what do you think the next gimmick is gonna be?
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| [FZ] The next gimmick? Eh, I don’t know, you think it up. Anything. Somebody’s gonna put a band together that uh… the music is made on a ‘39 Chevy ▶. And they’ve got contact microphones on different parts of the engine. And a special microphone that picks up the upholstery. And in live performance, they need very special amplifiers to get this sound across to the audience. Of course, they still have to have somebody standing out in front shaking a tambourine to keep the beat for the kids, but the rest of the music is very mechanical-organic, it comes right from the soul of the Chevrolet. And I think this is gonna be one of the first uh… really underground groups produced by Motown. It’ll be a mixed… It’ll be a mixed group. A mixed group, because some of the kids that… that’ll be in the group will be Polish because they know how to work on the engine.
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| [Other interviewer] What do you think will be the next, you know, like…
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| [FZ] After that?
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| [Other interviewer] The next, like, youth rebellion fad that…
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| [FZ] Youth rebellion fad? Well, let’s see. Eh… eh, next step is that the kids’ll all cut their hair off and go bald. I’m sure that’ll happen.
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| [Matt Biberfeld] Somebody approached me with an interesting question about uh… the title of the first album, “Freak Out!”, and… the whole idea of psychedelic songs. What does a person…
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| [FZ] You realize there wasn’t any prior to this, and if you ask about… have we influenced the market, stop and think about how many times you’ve seen THAT in places like sports columns uh… “Freak out” sales and… weirdness upon weirdness and… we have had lawsuit upon lawsuit against these people. This is a copyrighted term. Those of you out there who might be planning to use the word “freak out” in conjunction with some business: naughty, naughty, we’ll sue you to death. A magazine uh… was about to go on to the market, called “Freak out USA”, and they have received a telegram saying: cease and desist, you fools, because it will cost you a great quantity of money. Uh… Somehow or another, this group, which many people felt had no commercial potential ▶ whatsoever, have managed to influence some very important areas of American life and nobody will really be able to analyze the full impact of the Mothers of Invention for at least five years, when you can sit back and see it all in perspective.
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| [FZ] Uh… I think that probably the Stravinsky-ian influence probably popped up on the second album uh… but I’d say there’s a certain Varèse-ian aroma to the introduction to “Who are the brain police?”
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| What will you do if we let you go home
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| And the plastic’s all melted and so is the chrome?
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| Who are the brain police?
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| What will you do when the label comes off
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| And the plastic’s all melted and the chrome is too soft?
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| WAAAAHHHH!
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| I think I’m going to die
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| I think I’m going to die
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| I think I’m going to die
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| I think I’m going to die
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| I’m gonna die
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| I think I’m going to die
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| I’m going to die
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| I think I’m gonna die
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| Going to die
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| Who are the brain police?
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| Oohh oohh ohohohooo
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| What will you do if the people you knew
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| Were the plastic that melted and the chromium too?
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| Who are the brain police?
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| [Instrumental]
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| Any way the wind blows, is-a fine with me
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| Any way the wind blows, it don’t matter to me
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| ‘Cause I’m thru with-a fussin’ and-a fightin’ with-a you
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| I went out and found a woman who is gonna be true
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| She makes me, oh, so happy, now I’m never ever blue
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| She is my heart and soul and she loves me tenderly
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| Now ✄ my story can be told, just how good she is to me
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| Yes, she treats me like she loves me and she never makes me cry
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| I’m gonna stick with her till the day I die
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| She’s not like you, baby, she would never ever lie
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| [Instrumental]
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Now that I am free from the troubles of the past
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| Took me much too long to see that our romance couldn’t last
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| I’m gonna go away and leave you standing at the door
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| I’ll tell you, pretty baby, I won’t be back no more
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| ‘Cause you don’t even know what love is for
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Any way the wind blows
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| Mister America, walk on by
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| Your schools that do not teach
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| Mister America, walk on by
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| The minds that won’t be reached
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| Mister America, try to hide
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| The emptiness that’s you inside
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| When once you find that the way you lied
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| And all the corny tricks you tried
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| Will not forestall the rising tide
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| Of hungry freaks, daddy
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| They won’t go for no more
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| Great midwestern hardware store
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| Philosophy that turns away
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| From those who aren’t afraid to say
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| What’s on their minds
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| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
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| [Instrumental]
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| Hungry freaks, daddy
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| [Instrumental]
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| Mister America, walk on by
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| Your supermarket dream
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| Mister America, walk on by
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| The liquor store supreme
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| Mister America, try to hide
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| The product of your savage pride
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| The useful minds that it denied
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| The day you shrugged and stepped aside
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| You saw their clothes and then you cried:
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| “Those hungry freaks!”, daddy
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|
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| They won’t go for no more
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| Great midwestern hardware store
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| Philosophy that turns away
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| From those who aren’t afraid to say
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| What’s on their minds
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| (The left-behinds of the Great Society)
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| [FZ] They had existed as a group called “The Soul Giants”. They had a leader named Davy Coronado who played tenor sax, and I was brought in as a substitute guitar player because uh… Ray Collins, who was the lead singer with this group, had had a fight with the other guitar player and had beaten him up and uh… they had a job, a weekend job, and Ray called me and asked me to come down and substitute. And so, after playing with them and uh… enjoying the experience and liking what I heard, I suggested that we develop uh… original material and try and make records. Davy Coronado, who uh… well, he was absolutely correct, he said: “If you try and play original material, you’ll get fired”. Because in order to keep a job in a bar band in those go-go days, you had to just play what was on the radio or these stupid little dance songs. He said, you know: “I can’t do this uh… you know, I need to earn a living”. And so he left and uh… I convinced the guys to learn some original songs and Davy was right, we got fired, every place we worked we got fired. But eventually we got a record contract, and I don’t know whatever happened to Davy.
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| [FZ] They were originally just called “The Mothers” and then uh… when we finally got our record contract with MGM, some pinhead there had decided that uh… this was a bad name for a group and that no radio station would ever play our records because… the name was too… risqué.
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| And, they were suggesting other things that we should change it to, so, out of necessity we became “The Mothers of Invention”. It was… just by adding those other two words to it, we were able to keep the record company happy. But, naturally, the radio stations didn’t play the music anyway, because it wasn’t about the name of the band, it was what we were singing about, and the way the music sounded.
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| Because at the time, it was… you know, if you were a good musician, you were a motherfucker, and “Mothers” was short for collection of motherfuckers. And actually, it was kind of presumptuous to uh… name the band that, because we weren’t that good musicians, we were… but by bar band standards in the area, we were light-years ahead of our competition, but in terms of real musicianship, I just suppose we were right down there in the swamp.
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| [FZ] The Whisky was the home base for Johnny Rivers, he was like a fixture there and he played there every night and he was the big star.
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| The other place that groups would work was called “The Trip”. That was for groups that already had record contracts or touring groups. I guess that held about a thousand people. And uh… also part of this three-way circuit was this little club called “The Action” which was on Santa Monica Boulevard. And that was kind of the entry level establishment. Their clientele was uh… prostitutes uh… underworld figures and television actors, mainly, who came in there. Ah, some movie people, too.
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| And the only way you could work the Whisky is if Johnny Rivers was going on a tour. And since he was uh… the mainstay of their income there, he didn’t really tour that much, but one day he decided he was gonna do a tour and they needed some band to slot into the Whisky and we got the job. But they left his… the… the sign was a plywood sign they used to hang out in front of the Whisky, big letters: “Johnny Rivers”, and they never took it down, you know, to make people think that he was still there. I mean, imagine the shock they got when they came in and saw us playing “Trouble every day” and “Who are the brain police?” and that kind of stuff.
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| Well, the audience wasn’t anything to brag about, they were just a bunch of drunk people in go-go boots. But, you know, the money was a lot better than the Broadside because we… we were actually making UNION SCALE.
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| [FZ] The guy who came to see us, who was the… staff producer at Verve, Tom Wilson, had other priorities. And he was dragged from the Trip, where he was having a good time with some girls and watching a famous group. He was dragged from there to the Whisky a Go Go and forced by Herb Cohen to witness one of our songs, which happened to be a blues kind of a number and… he said: “Oh, white blues band. OK, we’ll sign them”. And for this, for 25 hundred dollars signing fee, he signed the group and then went right back to the… to the Trip.
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| [Nigel Leigh] How was ‘Freak Out!’ received?
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| [FZ] Flop. I think it sold 30,000 units, something like that.
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| [Nigel Leigh] What did the critics think of the album?
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| [FZ] Hated it.
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| [Nigel Leigh] Is there any… any sense in which ‘Freak Out!’ was a success for you?
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| [FZ] Well, we got it done. Some people enjoyed it.
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| [Interviewer] What was it like working with Tom Wilson?
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| [FZ] Tom was a great guy. Uh… He had a fascinating ability to read the Wall Street Journal, have a blonde sitting on his lap, and tell the engineer to add more compression to the vocal all at the same time. But by the time we started working on our third album uh… he was not talking to the engineer as much and talking to the blonde a little bit more and so I said: “Why don’t you just let me produce this? I know you have other things in your mind” and uh… “We’re Only in It for the Money” was the first album that I produced. He produced the first two.
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| [FZ] The ‘60s was really stupid
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| [Interviewer] OK, can you expand on that a little bit more? Why you think the ‘60s were really stupid?
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| [FZ] Well, it was a type of merchandising. Americans have this hideous weakness, you know, they have this desire to be OK, fun guys and gals. And they haven’t come to… to terms with the reality of the situation, we were not created equal ▶. Some people can do carpentry, some people can do mathematics, some people are brain surgeons and some people are winos and that’s the way it is. And we’re not all the same. And this concept of one-worldism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody uh… downgrades themselves to be is stupid. And the ‘60s was merchandised to the public at large. My pet theory about the ‘60s is… that there’s a sinister plot behind it, but I don’t wanna dwell upon that.
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| [Interviewer] OK
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| [FZ] OK. The… It’s just the lessons learned in the ‘60s about merchandising stupidity to the American public on a large-scale have been used over and over again since that time.
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| [Interviewer] “Freak Out!” and “Absolutely Free” influenced a generation
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| [FZ] Did they? They didn’t sell that much. How’d they influence a generation? Come on, tell me.
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| [Interviewer] That’s what my question says
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| [FZ] Well, that wasn’t a question. That was a statement.
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| [Interviewer] That was my statement.
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| [Interviewer] Looking back over all these years and those records, how do you feel about them now? Any differently?
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| [FZ] What, “Freak Out!” and “Absolutely Free”? They’re OK for something that was done as a 4-track recording twenty years ago. I mean, I wouldn’t sit around and listen to ‘em.
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| [Interviewer] You don’t think that they had any influence on people?
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| [FZ] Well, I know that a lot of people were vastly influenced by them. I’ve heard horror stories about that. But so what? They weren’t released to be influences; they were released as a form of entertainment for people who uh… didn’t have that type of entertainment before.
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| [Interviewer] You once said: “Listen now that I’m thirty years old, now that I’m over the hill, I don’t really give a shit, I don’t care”. Now that you’re over forty, any comments?
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| [FZ] Said it once, do I need to say it again?
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| [Interviewer] As a man with a sense of history, though, do you have any idea of how you’d like to be remembered?
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| [FZ] I don’t care whether I’m remembered. As a matter of fact, there’s… there’s a lot of people who would like to forget about me as soon as possible, and I’m on their side! You know? Just, heh heh… hurry up and get it over with. I do what I do because I like doing it, I do it for my amusement first, if it amuses you, that’s fine. I’m happy that you’ll participate in it. But, after I am dead and gone, there is no need to deal with any of this stuff, because it is not written for future generations, it is not performed for fu— future generations. It is performed for now. Get it while it’s hot, you know? That’s it.
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Songs list
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Title origin
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