The world got its first taste of the ultimate freak with this hysterically diverse and artsy proto-punk concept album. Who could imagine that these Mothers could've gotten a record contract? Frank Zappa took over R&B cover band the Soul Giants and headed for Los Angeles, where they got a record contract with jazz label Verve. Caught between the squares and the hippies, 'Freak Out!' regurgitates the doo-wop teen-romance pop of the day and transforms it into a subversive satire that at the same time shows genuine affection for the form. Throughout this ambitious double-album you will find garage rock, white blues, melodic pop, extended rock operettas, and moments that approach jazz fusion. The album lost money but eventually became a cult classic. It sold better in Europe and influenced The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.
"If you were to graphically analyze the different types of directions of all the songs in the 'Freak Out!' album, there's a little something in there for everybody. At least one piece of material is slanted for every type of social orientation within our consumer group, which happens to be six to eighty. Because we got people that like what we do, from kids six years old screaming on us to play "Wowie Zowie." Like I meet executives doing this and that, and they say, 'My kid's got the record, and 'Wowie Zowies their favorite song.'"
The guitar riff that starts the album apes the Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction'. 'Hungry Freaks, Daddy' "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 rallys 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 . . ."
Zappa says that when producer Tom Wilson first heard 'Who Are The Brain Police?' in the studio, he was very surprised: "I could see through the window that he was scrambling toward the phone to call his boss—probably saying: 'Well, uh, not exactly a "white blues band," but...sort of.'"
"What will you do if the people you knew
Were the plastic that melted,
And the chromium too?
WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE?"
'Wowie Zowie' "is carefully designed to suck the 12 year old listener into our camp. I like the piano and xylophone accompaniment in the second chorus. It is cheerful. It is harmless. Wooly Bully. Little Richard says he likes it."
"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"
'Trouble Every Day' "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 around Hollywood and no one would touch it...everybody worries so much about not getting any airplay. My, my. " Producer Tom Wilson had only heard the band perform this song at a club. Thinking that they were part of the growing "white blues" trend, he signed them right away.
"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 the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N 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"
'Freak Out!'
full album:
1. Hungry Freaks, Daddy
2. I Ain't Got No Heart
3. Who Are the Brain Police?
4. Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder
5. Motherly Love
6. How Could I Be Such a Fool
7. Wowie Zowie
8. You Didn't Try to Call Me
9. Any Way the Wind Blows
10. I'm Not Satisfied
11. You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here
12. Trouble Every Day
13. Help, I'm a Rock (Suite in Three Movements)
*I. Okay to Tap Dance
*II. In Memoriam, Edgard Varèse
*III. It Can't Happen Here
14. The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet (Unfinished Ballet in Two Tableaux)
*I. Ritual Dance of the Child-Killer
*II. Nullis Pretii (No Commercial Potential)
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