Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words Page #3

it matches very well their music.

Eccentric.

It's the new style.

In 20 years this music

is going to be classical.

You cannot define his music.

What he does is anti-music.

How to define his music?

He doesn't give a f***

about the establishment.

When you founded your

record producing company,

it was more or less a reaction to

censorship problems

with the big companies...

- Yeah, MGM.

- MGM.

Because they had been

actually tampering with my...

I would finish an album

and give them the tapes,

and they would take the tapes

into another secret room

and cut things out of it.

You know. That's what happened to the

We're Only in It for the Money album.

To give you an example

of what censorship was like at this company,

one of the lines that they cut out,

it took me years to find out

why this line was removed.

But in the song

Let's Make the Water Turn Black,

there's a line that says,

"And I still remember Mama

"with her apron and her pad

"feeding all the boys at Ed's Cafe."

And this is a song about these two boys

in this town that I knew, and it's...

Their mother was a waitress in a cafe.

And I couldn't understand

why they took this line out.

Two years later, in hushed whispers,

an executive from the company told me

that the pad was supposed to be

a sanitary napkin.

And they were upset

that there was a reference

to such a device in this album.

And so they told one of the

engineers at their company

to remove the line.

I heard that the professor at

the Wayne University in Detroit

has done a study of profanity

in the English language,

and he has discovered that, statistically,

the three most popular words

in the English language,

especially in the United States, are,

"Uh," "Uh," and "Uh".

And...

I'll save you the trouble of

pushing that button upstairs.

And I think it's amazing that so many people

ascribe magical properties to these words.

Don't you think, in away,

Frank, that it takes...

It takes a lively sense of guilt

to make sin fun or enjoyable,

and society decides for itself

what will be sinful?

Yeah, well, the worst part of all this is

while society is being duped

by all these maneuvers,

they have so little chance

of escaping that cycle, you know.

Just can't get out of it.

They'll just keep on being fooled.

If you talk to someone on the TV,

this isn't only the person

Frank Zappa talking there,

but for the audience at least,

it associates the

record company owner Frank Zappa,

the Mother of Invention leader Frank Zappa,

the man perhaps who's interesting...

Interested to promote his records.

What other images are there?

There might be a couple people

who think of me as a composer.

An isolated minority perhaps.

Some people think that I'm

some sort of political rebel.

Isn't it strange

the fantasies that people have?

You had one very negative

experience in Berlin...

Yes, I did.

Could you perhaps tell about that?

Yes.

We arrived in Berlin,

and we set up our equipment

at the Sportpalast.

And some students came over there,

and they said,

"We would like to have you help us

with a political action."

And they wanted to set fire

to the allied command center.

And I said, "I don't think

that is good mental health."

The minute we came onstage,

about 200 students got up

and they were waving red

banners and they were shouting,

"Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh. "

And they're blowing horns,

and they were throwing things on the stage,

and they were calling us

"The Mothers of Reaction,"

and they tried to ruin the concert.

And a few hundred people

were coming toward the stage,

so I increased the volume of the music.

And this noise was so loud and so ugly

that it was actually pushing them back.

It was like a science fiction story.

Meanwhile, there's all the other

thousands of people who are

sitting there looking around.

They didn't know

whether it was part of the show

that we had put together.

They thought it was, you know,

something that we might do.

There were reports that you

called these students fascists and...

I did. Yeah.

Because I think that there's

definitely a fascistic element,

not only in the left wing in Germany,

but in the United States, too.

Any sort of political ideology

that doesn't allow for the rights,

and doesn't take into consideration

the differences that people have is wrong.

I won't go for it.

I don't care what kind of label you stick on it.

This town, this town

Is a sealed tuna sandwich

Sealed tuna sandwich

With the wrapper glued...

There's this piece that I had written

over a period of years

while touring with The Mothers.

It's called 200 Motels,

and the reason it's called 200 Motels

is because all the sketches

were done either in airports

or in the hotel rooms or on the planes

or just traveling around,

so it's like a musical diary.

It's a mixed media presentation,

a combination of both film and opera,

a television show,

a rock-and-roll concert,

various different elements

that all tells a story of

when you go on the road, it makes you crazy.

This starts off with a...

Sort of a quiet string and piano background

with the strings divided into many parts.

Then we have the full-fledged

version of The Girl's Dream,

which begins with the sopranos and altos

blowing bubbles with a straw

into a paper cup

in this area A here.

And the narrator, who might

possibly be the conductor...

You know, it'd be funny to have

the conductor saying these lines.

He says, "The girl wants

to fix him some broth."

Hot broth.

Hot dog broth?

Hot dog debris

How do you like it?

Dog breath dog broth

Dog breath broth

And the chorus comes in and goes...

Doo-wee-oo, tinselcock, my baby

And then she says,

"Would you like some broth?"

And the narrator says, "Some nice soup."

And she goes, "Some hot broth?"

And the chorus goes, "Yum,"

and snaps their fingers,

and then they hum.

And he says, "Small dogs in it."

And the chorus goes, "Doggies?"

And she goes, "Hmm? Do ya?"

Then there's a fanfare where

the whole chorus screams...

Tinselcock

Blindfolds in place, please.

- Yes, sir.

- Here we go.

- Are they securely in place?

- Yes, secure, secure.

All right, mystery challenger,

will you enter and sign in please?

Primo Carnera.

- Ole!

- Ole!

- Ole!

- Ole!

- Are you in the arts?

- Yes.

Is there anything musical about your work?

Some people think so.

Then are you on the stage?

Yes.

A special kind of stage.

- You mean music stage.

- Yes.

Are you... Are you also a composer?

Yes.

Arlene?

Are you part of a group?

Yes.

Soupy

Do you have a mustache?

- Yes.

- You Frank Zappa?

- Yes.

- Yes!

- Good boy, Soup!

- Yeah.

- Good for you, Soupy!

- Very good!

Yeah! That's right.

Attaboy, Soup! Two Franks.

Tell us about the movie, Frank,

that you've been involved with.

We just finished a film called 200 Motels.

It's the first feature film

to be shot on videotape.

And we used four cameras,

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