Zappa's post-modern lyrics
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Topic: Zappa's post-modern lyrics
Posted By: MagicMoo
Subject: Zappa's post-modern lyrics
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 10:29
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Hi everybody!
A thought that came to my mind when listening Zappa's One size fits all recently, was the textual playing with words in those songs (and also in Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe), that one could call post-modern, held against his overt socio-political statements in his Sixties' lyrics. Maybe this is also the reason why the left-wing Rock/Pop critics of those days didn't follow his turn away from political cynicism to a more subtle approach of saying something about society or whatever. Thing is, that with his fans and following exactly this phase from, say, 1973 to 1975 is regarded very highly in the last ten years (as a proof look at the polls for his You can't do that on Stage anymore vol. II). What, imho, doubles the quality of his output in that particular phase of his work, is the hilarious funny group he had gathered round him. I think they're technically so good that they have the time for doin' fun on the stage (just watch the A Token of his Extreme DVD!). George Duke, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Ruth Underwood(!), Tom Fowler and Chester Thompson imho did the best jobs for FZ. This line-up is ultra-funky (maybe also because of three Whites, three Blacks, but that's just a minor aspect)and enlivens Zappa's stuff in a way no other formation did (because of that, me and my former friends felt Zoot Allures to be a big letdown). What do you think? |
Replies:
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 10:53
Someone's had too much to think.  No wonder you have a Hannover.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: CPicard
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 14:42
| Could you first give us a definition of "post-modern"? |
Posted By: MagicMoo
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 15:59
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Think so.
Post-modern in the sense I'm using it here is meant as a linguistic term, considering language/speech as a tapestry of words, that you can sort of play with, without giving it a one-dimensional or fixed meaning. IMO, that's exactly what Zappa does extensively on these three albums. Take Florentine Pogen, Take Montana or Evelyn, a modified dog. That doesn't mean that the lyrics are senseless or nonsense, but you just can't nail a message down like you could do it say with Flower Punk or Trouble every Day or Who are the Brain Police? I also don't want to say that this is better or worse than his more political approach in the Sixties, I just tried to explain a delevopment his art took in the early Seventies and the somehow one-dimensional answer to it from just those left-winged critics, who wanted to see Zappa as a kind of underground hero and then reacted rather unkind, when he (again) did his own thing and didn't let himself being instrumentalized by any given ideologies or pseudo- revolutionary ideas. Somehow interesting, Beefheart did this even before Zappa, but that's another discussion. Thanks for asking. |
Posted By: HarbouringTheSoul
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 13:50
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Sorry to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure the words to songs like Florentine Pogen and Montana are just that: Nonsense. Zappa mentioned on several occasions that if it were up to him, all his songs would be instrumental. He only gave some of them lyrics because he felt that instrumental music is ignored by most listeners. Alternatively, we could discuss the philosophical meaning of lyrics like "That's the kinda sound she makes when her crab cakes" (Arf arf arf!) |
Posted By: MagicMoo
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 14:37
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Hi HarbouringTheSoul!
Exactly that's the trap. If there is a certain philosophical meaning it can only be expressed by words. Zappa makes fun of those kind of meanings that some suggest could underlie his lyrics. He so to say undermines this discourse. Same he did with those critics questions with regard to his 'conceptual continuity'. So this is not nonsense but irony, cause he reflects this questioning with bizarre lyrics. It's also a kind of humour (Does humour belong in music - get it?), just another one like that people were used to. The argument of Zappa wanting to play mainly instrumentals isn't proper for Overnite Sensation and its followers (or was it ever, looking e.g. at We're only in it or the Flo and Eddie line-up) After Grand Wazoo (he didn't like the line-up very much, saying: "People who play chess during the days off, you know it's a little boring") he was glad to be "back in the singing business" as told to Charles Shaar Murray. And besides, you don't do that much lyrics like on, e.g, St. Alphonso..., if you don't want to sing. He often cites this language-induced irony and I hope you don't take that serious: "Poodles serve as a convenient mechanism for conveying certain philosophical ideas that might otherwise be more difficult". Have a nice day |
Posted By: HarbouringTheSoul
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 15:36
So his nonsense is not nonsense because he writes it out of spite? Whatever deeper motivation he had for writing lyrics that are nonsense (if any), Florentine Pogen is still nonsense. It seems silly to me to search for meaning in the lyrics of a song that is comprised of in-jokes and is titled after a type of cookie. You could say that the other song I mentioned, Montana, pokes fun at cowboys and people who sell useless products, but I really don't think there's anything deeper behind that either. Zappa's lyrics were mostly either socio-political commentary (like Trouble Every Day), making fun of the silly habits of other people (Penguin in Bondage, Dancin' Fool etc etc etc) or nonsense. Call that nonsense post-modern if you like. I don't think it means anything.
You said it yourself: Don't take it too seriously. There's not actually any deeper meaning behind poodles, they're just one of these things that will forever be mercilessly made fun of. You know, like British accents. And Republicans. |
MagicMoo wrote:Posted By: MagicMoo
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 16:25
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Hi HarbouringTheSoul!
I know what you 'mean' but this still misses the point. I give you another example, maybe that's clearer. Piccasso once said about his "Moon-Men"-drawings, that he just painted them to see what the critics might see in it. Same goes for FZ at that certain stage. He veered away from his socio-political 'humour' to a more bizarre approach towards his lyrics/language. But he doesn't do that without intention (see above). The "Poodle"-citation that he, as you sure know, used in several forms and on several occasions, doesn't serve him to say: Look here folks 'all' I do is lyrically Absurdistan, but to irritate and provoke a little towards those critics that tried to nail him down to a certain message. And sure with this approach do come in-jokes, sometimes also nonsense, bizarre (also one of his labels!) and strange associations. Interestingly enough (cause I haven't heard that he'd read him), FZ acts out instinctively, what for example the French philosopher Jacques Derrida did in his language-theory and this was indeed labelled postmodern. So Full Circle and maybe I could make this clear. |
Posted By: HarbouringTheSoul
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 00:18
| All this comes back to the same point: He deliberately wrote nonsense lyrics to make fun of his critics. That's nonsense with intention, but it's still nonsense. If there's anything more to it, then please explain to me the possible deeper meaning of Florentine Pogen, |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: January 27 2012 at 13:21
Not sure that this board is a good place to discuss a lot of the things that Frank was on about ... and he was a spokesperson for a heck of a lot of things in the Los Angeles area that ... unfortunately, when comparing the states of music today to those of yesterday, and Frank's time ... today's listener by comparison doesn't care or give a cahoot about what Frank was on about, and in fact many will say that he was pretentious and just shooting off his mouth.
Frank's strength for me, is in the music itself as "composition" ... because what he did with the music was much more important than the lyrics themselves, but we are not capable of getting past the rock star syndromme (and neither is his family!) in order to elevate this at all.
A lot of the lyrics, and you can see this in the Roxy and Elsewhere CD, were ad libbed in live performances, and eventaully showed up on an album in some form or another, which was one of the reasons why so many folks used to chase Frank Zappa bootlegs ... they were vastly superior to many albums. Now you can understand the rage over the rest of the tapes from Roxy and Elsewhere, because there is even more that most of us have never heard ...
I also think that the lyrics, a lot of times, were simply saying ... I challenge you to know what I'm saying and doing at the same time ... because the music underneath could be deadly, and the lyrics are talking about a dental floss tycoon ... but you fell for it ... you did not even take a look at the music composition and design of the piece at all ... you got stuck on the lyrics. And this, above all else was one of Frank's main themes all over his life! ... and one thing that he mercilessly went after and made fun of! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: January 27 2012 at 18:41
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I've always suspected that Frank's sincerity and seriousness was never allowed to manifest itself in any of his lyrics. That he was a highly articulate, deep thinking and passionate individual is probably undoubted but such sentiments would have laid him open to the types of verbal salvoes he reserved for those habitually captured in his sights. It is also risibly ironic that he was a personification of so many things he held in complete contempt e.g. as a wealthy and successful independent musician and entrepreneur he personified precisely what is called 'living the American Dream' As for Post Modern, you can make that dog-eared label stick to a bottle of vinegar and call it Chateaux de Sarsons. I guess I have considerably more regard for sincerity debunked than a vainglorious manifesto of 'Everything Sucks (Apart From Me)' ------------- 
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