The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!
Imagine you're in a band and a few of you are getting bored of playing standard blues covers. Your leader is a whiny puke who doesn't want to lose gigs by playing original material, so you replace him with a guitarist who knows exactly what he wants to do (make fun of whiny pukes). Ok, Frank Zappa's in charge now.
It's Mother's Day, so we're changing our name to The Mothers. Too edgy? Ok we'll add "of Invention." Yeah, sure we're a "white blues band," but this country is pretty stupid so we're gonna make fun of it as "a white blues band."
That's the real origin story. Zappa wanted to make fun of everything happening around him. Tom Wilson thought he was getting a generic white guy blues band so he was high the whole time, getting his mind blown in two completely different ways. He just kept indulging Zappa's crazy ideas until MGM said "holy shit, stop spending our money."
So, here's the irony. It's not the music Zappa's lampooning, it's the clash it creates with reality. The spoiled rich kids are sad and mopey, the drug addicts and losers are happy as can be, we're in here goofing around, and our producer is over there high as balls renting every percussion instrument within a 30 mile radius so we can bring in a bunch of homeless people to record a two act ballet, public school is corporate citizenship training instead of library time actually learning something. None of it makes any sense!
For his entire life, Frank Zappa used his incredible innate musical imagination to say over and over and over again "what the hell are you talking about? Everything works the way it's supposed to work if you just let us figure it out for ourselves."
The moral of the story, in my humble opinion, is that we could have spent the last half a century rewarding the search for real intelligence, but instead we decided to be shiny, happy people driving to mind numbing endless factory line work for the benefit of the ALREADY wealthy. I didn't mean to insult REM, but i'm positive that's exactly the phrase Zappa would have used.
This album is so good, and so funny, and so sad at the same time.
And, i'm sorry to disappoint you all, but Epstein boringly did hang himself, because he spent the last half a century ignoring Frank Zappa.
"Trouble Every Day" is THE song that got The Mothers a record deal.
Tom Wilson, one of the very very few black producers with any interest in diversifying his roster, heard this song and said we have to have to have to sign them. He was surprised by what he actually got, but it's pretty obvious why this song made the lightbulb go off inside his head.
The song was inspired by the Watts riots in LA, but it's an attack on society at large. The real heart of this song is Zappa standing there with the reality of the riot on one side, and the television coverage of it on the other. He's literally in the middle of it saying nobody will actually win this fight and the problem won't go away after the riot is over. So what is the problem?
Segregation, nepotism, sensationalism, and abuse of power. If you tell people they're only allowed to live in a specific neighborhood, then this isn't a free country. If the only path to success is through inheritence, then shocker most of us will be poor. If you tell people stay inside because those black people are dangerous, then surprise we're all de facto racist. If you fence in a bunch of people, tell the world they are drunkards and criminals, and only come around to arrest/punish them, duh, they're going to get really angry. I'm not black, but i'm definitely not associated with the other half of this fight.
Zappa's point was that the economic elite, and thus the government, are racist, but everyday people are the ones who suffer. This is about believing that anyone is a lesser human. It's about creating a society where some people get to be wealthy without having to work for it while some people have to clean up their mess and pick up their garbage (and if you educate them they won't pick up our garbage any more). But, we all suffer for it while they sit in their offices thinking up new ways to keep us fighting each other instead of calling bullshit.
He really is pointing at the tv and saying you weasley little pukes are telling me how scary the world i'm standing in right now is, then cut away to tell me you're safe and doing swell and you'll be first on the scene to give me all the gory details. Meanwhile, yeah i'm scared because i might get killed for this bizarro universe you created. News flash, i don't have the same skin color as the people i actually agree with on this particular issue.
That's my take on it, what are your thoughts?
Next
Comments
Post a Comment